


Mr. and Mrs. Barton

by mysticaljayne



Category: Avengers, Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Assassins, Awesome Phil Coulson, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Blackhawk - Freeform, Deaf Clint Barton, Enhanced, F/M, Human Disaster Clint Barton, Marriage, Protective Phil Coulson, SHIELD, Secret Identity, Spies & Secret Agents, Twins, made family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7678477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticaljayne/pseuds/mysticaljayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Budapest, two assassins run across each other when their exits are both blocked by the police searching for the person who assassinated a very important politician.</p><p>They use each other as their cover...but how long will that last?</p><p> </p><p>Basically, this is how I see Mr. and Mrs. Smith going if they happened to be Clint and Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Budapest

**Clint:**

 

Clint cursed the day that his assignment led him to this bloody city. It was supposed to be a simple in, assassinate the guy, and back out. Do things ever go that way for him? No. This time the plan failed because they found the body too soon.

 

And found the body of the same guy’s brother just a few doors down. This wasn’t his day, and he was cursing Budapest all over again.

 

He hears the cops talking about detaining every lone tourist, and wants to bang his head against the bar he is sitting in front of him. Talk about a bad day getting worse.

 

Clint turns away from the voices and locks gazes with the red hair beauty coming his way. Her eyes are sparkling, and he can tell that she is just as interested in him as he is in her. She steps up next to him, full body on body.

 

“But me a drink?” The beauty purrs out, and Clint is already raising his hand for the bartender to come his way. “Vodka.” She gives the order, and Clint is impressed when she drinks it down.

 

The police are looking around the place when one of Clint’s ideas pops in. “Care to dance?” Live music is playing in the background and he has a hand out for her to grab, or not, as her choice may be.

 

“Of course.” She turns the words in a way he isn’t quite familiar with, but all it does is draw him more into her spell.

 

He pulls her farther out into the floor, and the two of them dance.

 

A few more drinks, and a lot more flirtation, Clint has his hands on her waist and her tongue down his throat.

 

It doesn’t stop at that…But Clint isn’t one to kiss and tell.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

 

Natasha, aka The Black Widow, wanted to go back and wring whoever’s neck that found the body before she had planned. She had a jet ready to go at her call, but all flights were being postponed until they found the assassin that took out the minister.

 

Not that they were going to find them. Natasha could tell a professional hit when she saw one, and her hits were always professional.

 

Which leads back to her problem of escaping Budapest. Too many eyes were looking at foreigners, and she needed to find a way to not appear as a possible assassin. She overhears the officers talking about lone tourists, and that makes her look around for possibilities.

 

She ducks into the first place she sees, which just happens to be a bar. It’s not a bad place, but she knows they are just a bit behind her when the footsteps reach her ears. A plan…

 

Her eyes scan the place and lock on the only other foreigner in the place. His light skin tone put him into only a few classifications, but she was going to bet on American.

 

She catches her eyes, and puts on her seductress act like a cloak. She walks his way, careful to keep his eyes on her and not on anyone else. “Buy me a drink?” He seems to be really into this idea because he’s already waving the bartender back his way.

 

Probably hoping to get lucky, though she isn’t one to judge. With his yummy arms? She was willing to go down that path. Anyway, it’s not as if she can get pregnant.

 

The Red Room made certain of that.

 

“Vodka.” Natasha tells the bartender in a calm manner, and waits for her drink to arrive. It’s not the best, like from her homeland, but it’s better than some others that she has had.

 

She’s just finished the drink when her cover smiles her way. “Care to dance?” Definitely American with that accent. Most likely Midwest, if she was going to try to narrow it down any.

 

The best way to play a cover is to go along with the ride. “Of course.” She lets him lead to the dance floor, and she moves her body to the rhythm of the music.

 

She likes what she sees, and even when the danger is gone, she keeps on with the game.

 

A few more drinks, a couple of more dances, and she follows the man back to his room.

 

She is one to kiss and tell…but all she’ll say about that night is that it was one she couldn’t wait to repeat with her American.


	2. Chapter 1: Wedding Bells?

**Clint:**

It’s when he’s going over the forms from a just completed mission (Well, more accurately Phil is going over the forms while Clint makes sarcastic answers that Phil is interpreting on the page), that Clint has the idea.

 

“I think I’m going to ask her to marry me.” Clint randomly spouts out the comment on a question about how many arrows he used. He really didn’t remember, but he used almost a whole quiver. There had been a lot of AIM goons on this last mission.

 

Phil pauses in writing down something, probably a specific answer in response to Clint’s vague one earlier. “Who?” Clint was his friend, as well as his agent. As long as his private life didn’t affect his job, Agent Coulson didn’t care. Phil Coulson, the friend, felt differently. He has been there with Clint since he first dragged the mercenary/assassin into SHIELD, and he’s come to care for the younger man.

 

Phil looks up to see Clint with a blinding smile on his face. “Nat.” He shouldn’t be surprised at this announcement, but he kind of is. Not that he’s going to show his agent that.

 

“The woman from Budapest?” Phil keeps nonchalant, hoping that the woman he ran a background check on when he first figured out how much time Clint spending with her. Her story checked out, even if something in his gut had him keep looking.

 

Clint is still smiling, and Phil knows they won’t be getting much more of the paperwork done. “Yes. I just…I want to come home to her.” His face is filled with complete joy, and Phil knows that he can’t ruin the man’s happiness.

 

He’ll keep searching under the radar to find what he can on a Natalie Rushman. For now, he’ll listen to Clint talk about her wonderful virtues.

 

“Phil?” Clint calls for his handler’s attention, and Phil knows he can’t say no to the man when he looks this excited. “Mind being my dad for the wedding?” Clint thought of Phil as a father figure, and it would make sense to introduce Phil in that way.

 

“Yes.” Phil thought for a moment. “You want a mother, too?”

 

The mischievous look on Clint’s face is one Phil knows well. “Yes. I’m thinking Fury.” That should go over well with the director of SHIELD.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

She flips her sister operative over and puts the other woman in a basic hold. “He asked me to marry him.” Natasha comments, her mind only slightly focused on keep the other woman in place. She’s the best, which is why she is usually the one sent out with the others being her back up. It’s still good to keep in practice, however.

 

“Really?” The other woman grunts out. She tries not to remember their names, but the other Widow is someone that she knows can be as nearly as good as herself. When she’s focusing and at the top of her game.

 

Natasha’s hold is broken, and the two of them are going back to basic hits. “Yes. I think I might.” Today is an easy work out, something to try out moves on and to increase the speed of attacks. Their hits are increasing and Natasha barely has time to block a hit that was lower than she expected.

 

Yelena, that’s her name, notices the almost slip and smiles. “Would be good for your cover.” She slows down as she speaks, and Natasha finds her opening.

 

A hard jab and twist leaves the other Widow on the ground, Natasha’s foot at her throat. “That it would be.” Yelena is nearly as good as her, but what makes Natasha the best is how she’s able to multitask, and not let a mistake be her last.

 

Plans within plans is how she’s survived, and thrived, in this environment they were thrust into. While Yelena took that as the death blow, Natasha was already going through different ways on how to get out of it. Perseverance is what keeps her alive even when all of the odds are against it.

 

She will marry the American. Not because of what Yelena said, though that is part of it. Mostly it’s because the best cover has a grain of truth. She likes the American, and who looks at the wife of a construction company owner?

 

Anyway, the sex is good.


	3. Chapter 2: The Almost Same Assignment

Five years later…

 

**Natasha:**

She really wishes they wouldn’t give her assignments so close to home, but an assignment is an assignment and she cannot turn it down. A simple in and out case, so it shouldn’t cause too much of a buzz in the neighborhood. However, she needed to get out of the house without Clint noticing her outfit. Playing as a dominatrix works fine for this cover, but would be very hard to explain.

 

Natasha grabs her long coat and wraps it around her just as he enters their bedroom with a smile. “Heading out?” She’s glad that in some things he can be astute, but a bit dense in others. She has been able to explain away most of the bumps and bruises that she has gotten over the years. It doesn’t hurt that she heals quickly, too.

 

“Just a quicky.” She tells him with a quick kiss. She keeps are pace calm as she walks out to her car. He is used to her strange schedules and trips. He’s about as bad as she is.

 

Which works perfectly for her.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He’s glad that Nat gave the excuse this time and not him. Lying has never been his strongest suit, but keeping his secret life away from his home one is a top priority for him. Sure, she knows Phil from the wedding but nothing else.

 

Life is hard for the Amazing Hawkeye.

 

Okay, not really. His life is actually great. Really. He has a beautiful wife, a job he loves, and enough money to live comfortably. Though, the job kind of happened against his will all those years ago and some (if not most) of his money is covered in red because of the types of jobs he’s done. Still, he loves his job.

 

Even if on some days he hates it. Like today. His day was supposed to end an hour ago. Instead, he’s following his wife out to go to a poker game to take out an arms smuggler. He was hoping for a few hours of peace before the neighborhood party. It’s strange that he lives in a neighborhood that has house parties for all of the neighbors. If anyone told him that back in his carnie days, he would have laughed.

 

Course, back then he was more concerned with making enough food to eat on.

 

Now he’s pretending to be a rich drunk with more money than brains in a place that most, if not all, of the populace is carrying some type of illegal weapon. Luck for him, the people playing poker in the back have less brains than even he does.

 

“Hey!” Clint goes for the overly loud drunk angle. “Mind if’n I sit in?” He waves a stack of twenties in his hand to draw forth their greed and placate whatever curiosity they may have.

 

“Da.” One of the suited men answers, with the others quickly chorusing him.

 

He plays for a while. Wins a few hands. Loses a few. Clint knows how to gain trust in this kind of setting, still surprised they sent him in this time. “Do any of you by chance know a Lev Shestov?”

 

He should have expected his question to be met with bullets, but Clint always did prefer the more direct approach. He flips the card table over as cover and pulls two guns from his coat. (He really wishes he had his bow, but it’s hard to bring it when the goal is to not draw attention.) He takes out the man that he knows is Lev Shestov, and a bunch of the other goons as well.

 

He didn’t waste a single bullet.

 

He’s not known as Hawkeye for nothing. He never misses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lev Shestov was a Russian existentialist philosopher...just in case anyone was wondering.
> 
>  Enjoy. 
> 
> Oh, and I nearly forgot...  
> A special thanks to ClintandNatasha who keeps commenting and keeping me on the path to finish this.


	4. Chapter 3: House Party? Block Party? Whatever…babies stink

**Natasha:**

She had to take the quick exit because some idiot decided to shoot up the place downstairs. Because of that idiot, the guards for her target decided to check up on him earlier than expected. It’s hard to explain away a dead body, and so she had to get out by way of the window. Idiot.

 

Since things didn’t go according to plan, she barely had time to make it home and throw on a sundress before Clint was entering the bedroom with a smile. He seems to almost always be happy around her, which just helps her cover all the better. A happily married couple with no kids, living in the suburbs is hardly the type that gets unwanted attention from the government.

 

“Solve the problem?” She asks Clint as she finishes fixing her hair. She’s just going to have to make do with a bit of curls this time. The wind from the window escape basically ruined her straightening job from this morning.

 

He reaches past her for a tie. “Yeah. You know work. All kinds of last minute problems seem to come up.” She’s just grateful that he’s as busy as she is in work. “Ready?”

 

Natasha is already leading the way out of their bedroom, “Course.” They agreed to go to some neighborhood party thing earlier this week. It wouldn’t work to not go. It would draw unwanted attention that she didn’t want. Keeping her cover is the most important thing.

 

They get to the house that’s throwing the party and split up. She joins the women in the living room while Clint takes off to join the men. Gossip. Gossip. Really boring. Really dull. But she has to keep her cover as a working woman who is happily married in the suburbs.

 

“Do you two still have sex?” Marian White, married to Joseph White, one teenage son, and lives three doors to the left of the Barton’s had the guts to ask. Marian has always been a busy body these past five years.

 

Ellen Jones, married to a Sarah Little, and the mother of the infant that has been passed around for the past few minutes is the one to come to her defense. Not that Natasha needs it. “Really, Marian?” Sarah and Ellen are the new couple on the block, only moving in last year.

 

“I know I would be.” Carol Reynolds pipes in, and Natasha is wondering how in the world she’s going to get out of this one. There’s a reason why she likes her job and knows that she’d go insane if this was her reality. Is this really all women talk about? Normal women? “He looks like he could satisfy all night long.” Carol and her husband John had been having problems since Natasha and Clint moved in.

 

Hoping to bring an end to the conversation, and to ignore the knowing look from Marian. “He’s my husband.” Nat looks down to what Marian is looking at and notices that her fishnet tights were really noticeable where her dress had ride up her thigh. “When is the garden party?” She pulls the dress farther down, happy to call the attention away from her sex life.

 

It works for a while, and Nat is grateful. Grateful until Ellen passes the infant to her with a quick, “Hold him for a minute, I’ll be right back.” Nat doesn’t know why she didn’t pass the baby off to Sarah, but there the thing is in her hands.

 

It drools.

 

The baby is smiling and giggling, but she doesn’t get any of these feelings of having one of her own. The only feeling Natasha has is that this thing smells weird.

 

“You’re so good with him.” Carol has to give her two cents. Natasha doesn’t agree at all. What is she supposed to do with this thing?

 

She’s never been so grateful for the graduation ceremony as she is at this moment. With her work, what would she do with an infant? Maybe have Clint take care of it. She definitely couldn’t.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

“Uh oh.” One of the men that Clint has gotten to faintly know, Brock he thinks, catches his attention with that sound. “Seems the stork may be coming to your house, buddy.” Brock playfully punches Clint’s shoulder, and it takes everything Clint has not to put the larger man through a wall.

 

The words catch up to his instincts, and his brain screams to a halt. “What?” He follows Brock’s nod to where Nat is hold an infant up. The baby is kind of cute, but he didn’t see…. Oh.

 

There’s a reason why babies come in groups. He hasn’t seen it, but he’s heard rumors over the years about how women would start hearing the ticking of their biological clocks. Based on the look Nat was giving the baby… Uh oh.

 

“Good bye freedom.” Brock gave another one of those should bumps, but Clint wasn’t even paying attention.

 

If Nat wanted a baby… Well, he would give her anything she wanted. But a baby? The idea of being a father scared the crap out of him. He was afraid that he’d end up like his own.

 

Anyway, how could really take care of a child in his line of work? He guesses if Nat really wants one, they’ll figure out. She would be able to take a lot better care of the kid than he ever could.

 

Also, he’s been told more than once that he was just a child in an adult’s body.

 

That reminds him. He needs to move the trip wire back at base. No one has tripped it yet.


	5. Chapter 4: Near Miss

**Clint:**

He hears Phil’s voice in his ear, and is glad for the distraction. The desert is very dull, very sandy, and very hot. “Still bored, Phil.” Clint muttered, looking out into the fields of sand for the tale tell sign of an incoming vehicle.

 

“You were a top military sniper, Clint.” Phil admonishes his agent. Unlike Clint, Phil is in a nice, cool, station at the safe house. “I’m sure you can entertain yourself.”

 

Yeah, right. Clint may be able to put his natural tendencies to be annoying when on the job, but the waiting part when he has someone to complain to? Yeah, so not going to happen. “Come on, Phil. Twenty questions.”

 

Phil doesn’t respond, and Clint fights the urge to pout. Not like anyone is going to see him in his nest. Seriously, it took forever to find this place in the middle of the desert. Or semi-desert. Whatever. It’s hot and filled with sand, it’s a desert.

 

He sees something in the far off distance, “Yo, Phil.” He barely makes out an off road vehicle headed his way. “What time is the target supposed to be coming through?” He sure it’s not for another twenty minutes, so he shouldn’t be seeing anything for another five.

 

Phil’s voice comes over the intercom with slight static. “Not for another twenty-five minutes. What’s going on there, Hawkeye?”

 

“Maybe a civilian.” Clint tells his handler, his eyes still on the vehicle headed his way.

 

The static is getting stronger, and Clint has trouble making out Phil’s voice. “Need backup?”

 

“Naw.” Clint already as an arrow at the ready. Nothing lethal, but the thing would knock whoever was headed his way on their back for a few hours. “I got it.” He lines up the shot, waiting for the person to either keep going or to stop.

 

Non-lethals until lethal is needed. His rules.

 

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

If they had informed her of the target before this late date she would have already taken the kid out. Instead, she’s playing catch up with the security team instead of being a part of it.

 

She was happy that her handler gave her the vehicle at least to get her this far. Sometimes they just give her target and a place to take them out, and she has to go the rest of the way. This time she has a place, a vehicle, and a weapon. The weapon is a lot bigger than what she usually likes, but it’ll work for this.

 

A rocket launcher. A sure fire way to take out a large group of people, or a very large vehicle. A bit overdone, but what her handler wants, he gets.

 

She pulls the off road vehicle to a stop, and is about to grab the rocket launcher when an arrow land by her feet and a billow of smoke comes out of it.

 

Wait…an arrow? Who uses arrows anymore?

 

Quick reflexes have her covering her mouth and nose before the smoke has a chance to completely enter her lungs. She feels a little drowsy, but she fights it. This isn’t the time. She has to take out the threat and whoever shot at her.

 

Figuring out trajectories from an arrow is a lot different than from that of a bullet. She looks back and makes out a small outcropping. There she can make out a reflection and shoots at it before turning and shooting at the jeep heading her way.

 

She misses, and doesn’t have time to reload this time. She’s back on the vehicle, but doesn’t forget the arrow shaft left behind.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He digs his way out of the remains of his nest and looks out of it with a laugh. “Hey, Phil?” He calls over his intercom.

 

It takes a moment, but Phil’s voice is answering. “What happened?” Only Clint and a few others would be able to hear the tenseness in Phil’s usual bland voice. Phil works on always being in control.

 

“Hot chick blasted me out of my nest.” Clint laughed at that, even as he struggles through the mess to look for the arrow he leased earlier.

 

Phil’s tone is back to dry, all of the terseness gone from it. “You’re married, Clint.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Clint climbs his way back to the place where he shot the arrow and only finds a blaster behind. “Doesn’t mean I’m dead.” He turns the gun over a few times. “Seems like she’s from Hydra. I’ll draw a sketch when I get back.”

 

“No need.” Phil tells him. “We have security footage from the camera on your gear.”

 

“Spying on me, Phil? I’m hurt.” Clint is looking around for his ride. It should be there soon.

 

“It’ll be removed promptly.” Phil’s voice is dry at that, and Clint couldn’t stop the smile. “And the tech has been reprimanded.”

 

Clint chuckled as the helicopter touches down next to him. “I love you too, Phil.”

 

“Get in the helicopter, Hawkeye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know...I switch where they were in the movie. I just feel that Hawkeye would be in the sky while Widow would be on the ground.  
> Especially since Hawkeye loves his nests.


	6. Chapter 5: Who is the Rival?

**Natasha:**

“Who the hell uses arrows anymore?” Natasha bypassed turning in a report to go straight to the beast. She slammed the arrow down at the table and waited for one of the many lab techs to run in to take it for analysis.

 

Her anger is broken by the loud speaker system. “Agent Romanova, what happened?” Her handler always had a flare for the sinister, but it can be highly annoying when the goal was getting to the root of the problem.

 

Her anger was back, maybe not the best look for an emotionless assassin, but it would have to do for now. “Someone shot at me using an arrow. An arrow.” It was so ridiculous that it was nearing ludicrous. Her assignment was a failure because some moron shot at her using a prehistoric weapon?

 

“New assignment.” The speaker told her, not even bothering with secrecy at this point. Soon enough everyone will learn of the Black Widow’s failure. “Your job is to deal with this archer.”

 

She bit her tongue before doing something that will mark her as insubordinate. “Yes, sir.” The system clicks off and Natasha turns her anger towards the lab techs around here.

 

One of them finally comes forward with a red file before scurrying off. She looks at the name at the top and was amused at the name.

 

Who the hell comes up with the name Hawkeye?

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He handed what he found over to techs and avoided the hospital staff by way of the vents. He really disliked being waylaid by the doctors and nurses that SHIELD kept around. They liked to poke and prod his body a bit too much for his liking. Also, they were usually his target of preference whenever they were off duty.

 

Well, besides the higher ups and newbies. While an equal opportunist prankster, some people were even funnier to prank than others. The newbies were so easy to scare at times, though.

 

He drops through the vent and into his favorite agent’s office. “Phil! What do you have for me?” No matter how many times he has tried, he has yet to receive much of a reaction from his handler.

 

Phil is looking at a file, and instead of reading out to him like he usually does, he passes the file across the desk to him. “Actually read it, Agent Barton.” Phil knew him too well.

 

He had a habit of using files for target practice whenever he was bored. Also whenever he wanted to really annoy some people. “Black Widow, really? Sounds ominous.” Before he could open the file, Phil was handing him another one. “Two? Ugh, you know I hate paperwork.”

 

“Read it.” Phil’s voice held the order, and Clint froze before looking up at his handler in shock.

 

The files were in his hands…but his focus was on the man he saw as a father. “Phil? What’s going on?” Phil never gave him orders in his order voice unless it was something extremely painful to him, or deadly in that one case involving the snake (don’t ask).

 

Like always, Phil’s face hardly showed any emotion. A bland face that covered a man that was anything but. The handler motioned for his agent again to the files.

 

The second file had a list of suspected nests for Hydra and Red Room operatives. One address caught his eye and held it.

 

“No.” Everything inside of Clint froze. Impossible. Nat wasn’t... She couldn’t be…

 

Phil was being the emotionless Agent Coulson, and Clint knew whatever was coming next would most likely be even worse. “Read the other file.”

 

Inside of it is another list and information about the Black Widow program. In it was photos of suspected Widows that they have track of.

 

“Phil…” Clint felt his entire world breaking around him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. It’s impossible. He knows Nat… Nat couldn’t be this. She just couldn’t be.

 

But the information was there. Right in front of him. Everything was pointing right at it.

 

Agent Phil Coulson reached out a hand in a rare show of affection for the man he saw grow under the umbrella of SHIELD. “Do you want me to…”

 

Clint didn’t need to hear the rest of the question, because his mind was already going through scenarios and explanations. “No, I’ll deal with it.”

 

The others sent after her would shoot first and ask questions later. Special Agent Clinton Francis Barton, though? He follows his own rules.

 

Certainty before going lethal.

 

He needed to know beyond any doubt that his wife was this person shown in the photographs. Because even if all of the evidence points toward a fact, it doesn’t make something true.


	7. Chapter 6: Verification is a Necessity

**Clint:**

The first thing on his list to clear his wife’s name was to check out the address. There might be other groups that would explain away the why behind the address was in the file. He’s starting at the root to travel further into the web. Web. Ha! That’s actually pretty funny considering that he’s hunting a potential next of Black Widows.

 

Okay, maybe not so funny since it involves his wife of five years.

 

He goes into the building before heading straight to the rectory. Clint is actually grateful for how exact SHIELD personnel could be in reports, even though he liked to keep his vague when he can. While exactness is fine and dandy, sometimes just giving the barebones of something should work just as well. Also, it helps with his image of being irresponsible.

 

The less people that wanted to work with him, or ‘handle’ him in that one guy’s case (that reminds him…he hasn’t put itching powder in that man’s training clothes for a while), the happier Clint is. He likes working with people that will listen to his input. He’s not all pranks and fun times.

 

Though he likes the workers at SHIELD to think that.

 

He looks at the directory with a critical eye, and feels disappointment consume him. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to come here and find that there was another group that was working on the same floor as his wife’s work.

 

Oh well. That just means onto the second part of his plan. The blunter portion of it.

 

He dials the number he knows from memory and waits for it to ring in.

 

“Bronson’s Trading Partners, how may I help you?” The female voice on the line shouldn’t have surprised him, but he had kind of been hoping to go straight to the source instead of having to go around the bush a bit more.

 

“Yeah…” Clint realizes that the question wasn’t really a yes or no right after he said that and winced. “Um, is Natalie Barton free to take a call?”

 

Clicking over the line, and Clint was coming up with some nice sounding music that would be better than the clicking, when the woman answered, “Not at the moment.”

 

His eyes are already going around the building, taking note of every security camera in sight. Too many at the moment for a maybe. “Can you ask her what time supper is?”

 

“May I ask who this is?” The woman whose name that Clint never could catch asks.

 

It’s actually kind of annoying how straight lace everyone can be at times. “Her husband.” Though it can be useful at times. Like when someone landed a plane and flashed credentials that weren’t real (that actually wasn’t his fault) and started shooting up a safe house (maybe his fault…maybe, because he’d been the only one to question the dude).

 

“Mrs. Barton?” Clint can hear the woman over the phone call to his wife. “Your husband wants to know what time dinner is?”

 

Dinner…crap. Wrong time zone. Or culture. Whichever. There’s a reason why undercover work wasn’t his forte. Or maybe it was because everyone underestimated him? He’ll ask Phil later.

 

“Seven tonight, as usual.” The woman told him, “Anything else?”

 

“Yeah.” Clint looked around, already a bad feeling about this path he had chosen to go on. Something tells him that this is going to be very messy before the cleanup. “Tell her I love her.” He hangs up his cell phone before heading on back outside.

 

A ringing that he recognizes as work comes from his phone and despairs of the fact he put it in his file as a way for Phil to get ahold of him. “Barton here.” Phil only. Oh, and maybe Fury. Definitely not May, though.

 

“Clint, we have a situation.” Coulson tells him over the secure line, and Clint loves the dramatics. Really not.

 

He’s already moving towards his car. It’s a nice car with good gas mileage and all that. “What is it?”

 

“The grapevine is active.” Phil explains to him, “Black Widow is coming after Hawkeye.”

 

Clint has to chuckle at that. Or at least mentally. “This is going to be fun.”

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

She’s been staring at the file ever since she came back, but nothing jumps out at her to tell her the identity of the man behind the purple mask. Yes, purple. Hawkeye seems to like purple nearly as much as her husband.

 

Husband. Clint.

 

She catches herself fiddling with the arrow necklace he gave her for their first year anniversary as her mind goes over the facts in the case, and the few fuzzy photos they have been able to get of the elusive assassin. Most likely, Hawkeye had a file just as mix match on herself. Even though the Red Room was very good at keeping things a secret, there were always pieces of information that got out.

 

For it’s not always plausible to kill the other person involved in the secret, and like most things the Red Room is a bureaucracy. Which means a lot of paperwork for even the most mundane.

 

Pictures. “Chloe!” Natasha calls out to one of the few people assigned to help her in hunting down Hawkeye. “Can this be enhanced even further?” She waves the photo towards the other woman, but Chloe shakes her head. Certain things can only be enhanced so far before it was just guess work.

 

The photos though…

 

Hawkeye came onto the scene as a mercenary for hire. There were reports that Hydra was going to approach him before hearing word that he joined SHIELD. A few notes spoke of disappointment at losing the asset, but nothing concrete about how they were going to approach the archer. He was almost a ghost, but not quite.

 

Natasha had been trained by a ghost, but she can appreciate someone who was coming to look to be nearly as elusive.

 

“Mrs. Barton?” Katrina, the one in charge of incoming calls is the one to call for her. She sounded amused, but she always did sound a bit like that. “Your husband wants to know what time dinner is?” Katrina seemed to think that Natasha’s cover was a joke for her personal amusement. It wasn’t.

 

“Seven.” Natasha answered offhandedly. Her husband. Arrows. Purple.

 

Clint used to be in an archery club. He loves purple. Like, seriously loves purple. He insisted on at least one room in the house being painted that color.

 

Once the idea took root, it wouldn’t go away. She faintly heard the others working around her, but her eyes were on known dates of activity for him.

 

Dates.

 

That lines up perfectly with the times her husband went on his business trips. Not for all of his business trips, but enough to make a pattern.

 

“He says to tell you that he loves you.” Katrina’s tone was slightly mocking, but Natasha wasn’t hearing it. All she heard was the voice inside of her head making connections and coming to a conclusion that’s impossible.

 

Clint is an idiot. Her adorable idiot.

 

He’s not capable of being the cold blooded assassin in the file in front of her. Impossible.

 

She uses all of her training to keep her voice mild. “That’s sweet of him.” Inside, her mind is screaming at her to run. To confront. To find the truth for herself.

 

Archer. Purple. Dates.

 

She looks closer at the clearest photograph they had, and even that couldn’t calm her racing thoughts. His body was the same shape as the one in the photograph.

 

Impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be part of a much larger chapter. Instead, I decided to split it in half.  
> I hope you readers enjoy it.


	8. Chapter 7: Dinner from Hell

**Clint:**

Near certainty is still not certainty. Clint may be holding on to the dim section of his stereotype a bit much at the moment, but he can’t go in with guns blazing on his own wife! What if she isn’t one of the Black Widows? Or even slightly connected to the program, huh?

 

Even if the chances are slim.

 

So, instead of going in with his favorite bow he goes in with a nice bottle of wine to add to their usual dinners. Nat gets home earlier than him and will cook the meal like normal and he’ll surprise her with a chilled bottle of wine. He can be romantic at times.

 

And if she’s the target? Well, it’ll be easier to either capture or eliminate her when she’s slightly drunk. Or he’s slightly drunk. Most likely he’ll need to be drunk to be able to do his job, or at least have a bottle of something after the fact. He may be an assassin, but he’s still human.

 

The wine has some kind of name that he isn’t even about to try to pronounce. If on a mission, he would give it a shot and hope for the best. But at home? No. Nat doesn’t know about his language proficiency or any of his skills.

 

He opens his front door, one of his goofy smiles still in place, with the bottle of wine up as a peace offering. “Nat? I come bearing gifts.” He also picked up a thing of flowers. Just something to change up the pace for a bit. Just in case, you know, she isn’t a super assassin out for his head that he has to take out.

 

She walks into his line of sight, and it’s similar to the first time all over again. Or maybe he’s a secret romantic. She takes the flowers from him with a smile full of gentleness and none of the teeth he would expect from a Red Room Operative. “Really, Clint?” Or from his ex.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

This is the dork that she married. A man easily put into the role of dupe but always okay with it. The flowers were nice, even if not her favorite.

 

“Just felt like we needed a change.” Clint may be right in a way; their home life was very much into the boring style of what is expected of couples that knew each other a bit too much. “That’s all.” Did she detect nervousness, though?

 

The last time he was nervous like this was right before he proposed. She had known he was going to for about a week before he popped the question at that restaurant. Part of the reason why she had run the idea by her superiors before he even got the chance. “Dinner is almost ready.” She led the way to the table, happy for the candles that set the mood. An intimate setting, sure, but something that they tried to keep as a habit from the first year.

 

With both of them traveling so often, they had made the pact to try to keep the romance alive. Part of the reason why she loved having this cover.

 

Too bad it was most likely going to have to come to an end tonight.

 

She brings out the main dish, some kind of roast thing. She doesn’t know what it’s called since she didn’t cook it. Ordering in has worked perfectly for her for the last five years. Being an assassin doesn’t give a lot of time to learning how to cook the best of meals.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

Clint never noticed before how many knives could be used at a single dinner. Seriously, he’s already counted three and that’s not even adding the personal knives given for eating.

 

The first knife had been the one to cut the roast. It was a really nice roast, just a bit overdone on top. He had moved in to take the knife from Nat and to cut the thing. Just to turn a bit and see her slicing up bread! Really.

 

The third knife was in the vegetables, but it was a very small one. Which then lead to him taking a bite of the meat and noticing that Nat was eating her vegetables, and looking at him with a very peculiar look. Would she seriously poison him? Would that be something the Black Widow do? Well, he’s had assignments that involved using poisons in drinks, but usually that was just to knock a few people out. The people he was normally assigned to kill you couldn’t get to by way of food or drink.

 

With a smile, he keeps on eating, careful to keep an eye on Nat. Just in case, you know. Just in case.

 

Oh, he nearly forgot the wine. He opens the bottle and walks over to her side to pour her a drink. Now was the time to do a test. A test to see if she’s really the person that SHIELD was suspecting.

 

He lets go of the bottle.

 

It turns in midair and he mentally questions why they have white carpeting. Seriously, white? White is so easy to stain.

 

It stops, with Nat’s hand around the bottle.

 

Clint locks gazes with his wife, and he knows that she knows.

 

She let’s go of the bottle, but it’s already too late. “I’ll get some napkins.”

 

“Grab a towel.” Clint is already moving out of the room just as she goes the other direction.

 

He doesn’t have a bow in the house, but he does have a small gun.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

He’s Hawkeye.

 

Clint Barton, the man she’s been married to for the past five years, is the infamous Hawkeye.

 

Her training says to kill him, but everything else in her tells her to run.

 

She runs.

 

She runs to the vehicle in Natalie Barton’s name, and take off. She sees Clint in her rear view mirror, but she doesn’t stop. She can’t stop.

 

She can’t hurt him. Oh God, she can’t.

 

When did this happen??

 

A bullet hits her windshield and breaks her out of the emotional fog that was surrounding her. Did he seriously shoot at her? Seriously?

 

She floors the gas and somehow he’s on the roof and breaking out the side back window. “We need to talk.”

 

She can’t talk. Not now.

 

She jumps out the door to see the car go over an embankment.

 

If he’s as good as the file says, he won’t be killed that easily. Which just means that she has to come up with another plan of attack, and another way of hardening her heart.

 

She can’t love her husband. Especially since she has to kill him.


	9. Chapter 8: Alcohol Dulls the Memory

**Clint:**

“Phil!” After crawling out of the burning vehicle, Clint ran to the one person he could trust with everything. Yes, the car somehow caught on fire after going over the embankment. Just his luck. “Come on…Please answer. Please answer.”

 

It took a few moments, and hopefully nobody sane was out at this late hour, but Phil finally answered his door wearing a robe. This may be the first time Clint ever saw the stoic agent in anything besides a suit. “Clint? What are you going here?” If he was such an emotional mess, he probably would have brought a camera to commemorate this moment.

 

He’s just glad Phil didn’t ask the how he knew. “She’s the target.” Phil is already opening the door and pulling Clint into his nondescript house. “I don’t…I can’t believe it. She hit me with a car.”

 

“What?” Clint was always difficult to follow at times, but sometimes even it took Phil a few moments to catch up. “Start from the beginning, Barton.”

 

“Technically I shot at her first.” Clint started rambling, going around in circles in his handler’s kitchen. It is what you would expect out of a basic kitchen: refrigerator, stove, microwave, cabinets, drawers, and a sink. All of the appliances in an off-white color. A plain exterior to hide a colorful interior.

 

Phil looked over at his coffee machine with a bit of longing, and the time lit up by the stove. “And you missed??” Hawkeye never misses, but Hawkeye has never been in love with a target before.

 

“Bullet proof glass, and I wasn’t aiming.” Clint waved off his comment, while randomly going through drawers. Barton was definitely not getting any caffeine at this time of night. Even though not aiming is never an excuse for Clint. Something about him had everything he either shot, thrown, etc. go exactly where he wanted it to go.

 

Phil thinks he may be one of the gifted that pops up every so often, but he’ll never send his agent in for testing. “So, Natalie is the Black Widow?” He can’t imagine what pain his agent was going through, but he can sympathize.

 

Clint finds whatever he’s looking for in the fridge. Phil isn’t surprised that it’s a six-pack of beer. “Yeah. My wife of five years is a KGB spy.”

 

“Red Room operative.” Phil goes ahead and corrects the younger man before grabbing a beer of his own. “What are we going to do?” We sounds so much better the obligatory you, even though Clint would be the one doing most of the work.

 

“I can’t kill her without giving her a chance.” Clint is pleading for Phil to understand. “You know that, right Phil?”

 

Phil looks at the clock on the stove again, before going ahead and starting a pot of coffee. “I can give you till 1500 tomorrow.” After that, though, he’ll have to report in that Black Widow is still alive and active.

 

Clint just nods, and Phil knows the archer will end up on his couch at some point this night.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

She ran for a few blocks before catching a cab back to her work. There, she pores over the file she got of Clint Barton back when she first starting seeing him regularly. At first it had been a way to blow off steam after a mission by stopping off in the city. Then, it had seemed like the beginning of a perfect cover, and her handler had agreed.

 

Did her handler know that Clint was Hawkeye way back then? Or at least suspected? It would be just like Ivan to do that. To put things into place so that everything would be in right place for an attack.

 

How about Clint? Did he marry her just because she was the Black Widow? Had it been a game the entire time to see how long it took the enemy to notice?

 

But Natasha reads people to get into their trust. Could Clint really be that much better than her? Or maybe he was just as surprised? He seemed to be. He also seemed to love her completely. Even earlier with the flowers…

 

The sweet idiot.

 

She pulls open the drawer and grabs the files in front of her with a finality. She will put in the report to clean out the house of everything in the morning.

 

Not now. Now she is going to incinerate these files and drink the rest of her bottle of vodka she left in the drawer from an earlier mission that went bad that her handler let her keep the memory of.

 

Vodka. Sleep. Cleaning. Kill her husband.

 

A to do list she planned on starting right now. Starting with good old Russian vodka.


	10. Chapter 9: They Took My Toys!

**Natasha:**

She had her vodka last night before falling asleep at her desk. A few hours of sleep were all she needed before dragging the other Widows back out as soon as they got there. The third step in her plan was what they were going to work on. Cleaning.

 

They were going to find everything there was to know about Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye.

 

She couldn’t stop the slight twinge when one of the women ripped open the teddy bear Clint won for her on one of their many dates to the carnival. It had been her idea to go. At the time it just sounded like something he would like to do. A childish pursuit for the both of them.

 

He mentioned spending time with a circus during his childhood. Was that a truth or a lie for his cover? Maybe the reason why she’s so concerned about the lies is because her own cover story was filled with them. She had thought there were no secrets behind his stories, but maybe it was all a lie?

 

It was the first and only time he hadn’t wanted to do something but went ahead because she wanted to. He won the stuffed bear by being able to hit every target. She remembers him laughing at her look and explained how he knew the tricks of the trade because he spent some time with a circus that had similar games.

 

She should have known better than to take a story at face value.

 

Natasha watched over the other women as they went through the stuff. Kind of surprised that they were watching her wedding video. “Turn it off.” There was no need for them to replay the past when they were now in the present.

 

“Background research.” Of course it would Katrina leading the group in looking at something that was unneeded.

 

Yelena walks by, and with one look is already getting the other women back to work. “We need to know who is now. Not who he was.” Natasha nods at her, grateful for the other woman’s words. “Anyway, where is the weapon stash?”

 

A good question, and one Natasha may have a lead to. The house was her domain. Outside, though? Clint had one of his own. “Follow me.”

 

Straight to the shed out back.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He woke on the couch with drool on his cheek, a hangover to remind him why he doesn’t drink, and a cover on top of him. He knew Phil loved him and the blanket was just a symbol of that. Phil was like the father he never had, and a brother in ways that his late brother hadn’t been able to be.

 

Scars from a past that he preferred to forget, but the actions of the present seemed to want to bring back up. He gets up and wanders back into the kitchen to see a short note on the refrigerator about heading on to work and that he should do the same.

 

Clint moved to the drawer he knew held one of Phil’s guns and dragged it out. He need small and compact. His bow and arrows didn’t fit that bill, even though he knew Phil kept a collapsible compound upstairs in case of emergency. He may have staked out Phil’s house not long after joining SHIELD, and Phil may have left him a cup of coffee in a nest of his not far from the house one evening. It may have happened like that, or maybe he’s just completely guessing.

 

Maybe.

 

But that’s not here and it isn’t now. Now he needs to get to work in getting to Nat. His wife. Target. The target. He can’t let himself think of her as a person.

 

For all he knows, everything has been a setup from the start.

 

Even if that thought hurts whatever is left of his heart.

 

He grabs the cup of coffee that Phil so kindly left behind for him, and starts coming with a plan. His first plan wasn’t going to work. His first plan involved finding out that Nat wasn’t in anyway attached to Hydra, Red Room, Black Widows, or any other group that could possibly be after his head.

 

Which means that he has to go for another one of his plans. Another one that he didn’t think he would even have to touch on. He has to get to her, and to talk. They need to talk. He needs to know…He needs to know that it wasn’t all a lie and that there was something they can do to salvage something from this mess.

 

He shoves the gun in the back of his pants and covers it with the back of his shirt. Guns are smaller, and easier to conceal. He may need it when he goes back to the house. Maybe. Hopefully not.

 

So Clint grabs a set of keys and drives to the neighborhood he had been a part of for the past five years. Instead of going straight to his house, he stops at Brock’s. The least the other man can do is be his human shield from the target, just in case.

 

“Wow, didn’t think you thought of me as such a friend, Clint.” Brock announces as Clint places the other man slightly in front of him.

 

He doesn’t think of the manly-man as a friend, but that’s a part of being in the spy business. He can make most people think of him as a friend for a few moments. “Not much into showing feelings, you know.” Clint keeps Brock in front of him through the house, and he takes note of the chaos in the house.

 

Someone has gone through the house with a not so kind comb.

 

“I didn’t know your house was so big.” Brock chuckles as if they are the best of friends. “Maybe we can watch some ball in the den of yours sometime.”

 

Clint keeps his smile in place even as he waves at the man in the front yard. “Sure. Maybe on a Sunday when I’m free.” He waves Brock off as he heads towards the back to see if they found the secret room in the little house outback.

 

He goes in there, puts in his code (their wedding anniversary) and watches the floor pull up for him to drop into a small hole. He isn’t as surprised as he should be that they emptied out his archery range. He is kind of disappointed, though.

 

He’d been working on some prototypes for new arrows. Mostly just for fun. One released a bouquet of flowers on impact. He kept his more lethal prototypes at SHIELD barracks. Still…he was looking forward to using those.

 

They took his favorite set of throwing knives, too.

 

So, a side path of his plan. Nat wasn’t at the house, so now he needs to find a way to get to her. Where else would she go but work?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried showing a bit more of Clint's emotional state in this one, and a bit of how Natasha is dealing with things. A few more tears, I'm sorry to say.


	11. Chapter 10: Infiltration...Clint's Way

**Clint:**

His skillset laid in being able to come up something when everyone else saw nothing. That is how he came to find himself inside the vents at Nat’s work. Most large buildings had the same basic layout, and he knew the layouts very well. He liked vents. Vents are small places where no one ever thinks to look in case of an infiltration.

 

Well, vents and sewer systems. He’s been sewer systems. It’s a lot easier to come back into the thick of people smelling a bit like dust than it was smelling like…well, very unpleasant things. Which is why he sticks to vents when he can.

 

His ear piece turns to static, and knows Phil is so not going to like this plan. “Hawkeye, you better have one very good reason for being where I think you are.”

 

“Getting my wife back, sir.” Clint kept his voice soft, and his sense taking in everything in his surroundings. The bad part of vents is how things echo throughout. No need to giveaway his position when he was so close to his goal.

 

“Barton.” Coulson never used his last name except when highly annoyed with his agent. “We have teams in place for this sort of thing.” Agent Phil Coulson is one of the highest ranking handlers, and Clint wasn’t surprised at his ‘father’ having a backup for everything.

 

But Clint couldn’t depend on another team doing this. “I told you, sir. I have to do this on my own.” He did tell him, but telling him in a safe place was different than going into a viper’s nest without backup.

 

“GPS is disabled.” Coulson’s response is all he needs. His Handler is letting him go on his own. Which means no backup. No retrieval team. Just his wits and the skills he has accumulated over a lifetime.

 

“Thank you.” Clint answers, not expecting any response as he goes deeper into the vent system. He’s inside the honey comb, with the next step into play. “Hey, Mrs. Barton.”

 

“Clinton, I’m surprised. I told you not to call me at work.”

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

His voice on the speaker phone froze the world so that everything in her could focus on the voice. “Clinton, I’m surprised. I told you not to call me at work.” Though this wouldn’t be the first time he disobeyed those rules, but considering the situation?

 

“You know me, babe.” The endearment twisted something inside of her, but she couldn’t focus on that. She waves for the other women to get to work figuring out where Clint was at. “I don’t like being told what to do.”

 

Security information flashes on her computer screen, and she keeps her emotions under complete control as it went through floor by floor. “You may need to be punished for that.” The seductive tone that curled that sentence wasn’t voluntary, but it was something she could work with.

 

It was one floor away when the screen showed red on the floors. A breach on the level right below the floor that they were on. She pushes a button that silently sends all of the other women into motion. Silence is key for the moment. Or at least as quiet as possible. If an enemy agent was going to gain access to their level, they needed all of the information relating to them to be destroyed.

 

“Teasing me, Nat?” She can hear the smile in his voice, and it hurts like nothing she thought would. It was as though he was reaching in and twisting whatever remained of her broken, frozen heart.

 

The security system was pinpointing the exact location, but they didn’t have time for that. She punched in the code for everything to wipe and got into position with the others. They had back up plans for these kind of things. Lines connect the building they were on to the one next door with a quick pull of a trigger. Handles easily pulled out of tools easily hidden in the room filled with so many nook and crannies.

 

Natasha looks back at her desk, and sees a single piece of paper that they hadn’t destroyed. She didn’t have time to run back when the vent cover in the corner slams down on to the ground to reveal booted feet.

 

A blonde man jumps on out and the look on his face is full Clint Barton. She has gun in a holster at her side. She could easily pull it out, aim, and all of her problems would be over.

 

But she can’t.

 

Instead, she waves at her husband before hooking up to the line to join her ‘sisters’ on the other building.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

Clint busts out of the vents in time to watch Nat hook herself up to the rigging line. She looks back at him, and he can’t bring himself to move. She’s looking back at him clearly, as if a fog that he never noticed before has lifted and she’s the sun burning the rest of it away.

 

She’s carrying. He can see the thin outline of holsters under her clothes, but he doesn’t bother to leap out of the way. If she goes for the weapon, sure he’ll drop. He’s not an idiot, and despite popular belief he doesn’t have a death wish.

 

More like a lack of a life wish, but that issue is for the SHIELD therapists they keep sending him to to deal with.

 

He sees her turn from him, though, and take off to the other building. His feet are already moving before she’s out of the window, but he’s too slow to reach her in time. He watches as she goes along the line and lands on the other building with grace. Similar to the ballet dancers he took her to as a surprise date four months ago.

 

She waves his way, and if he had his bow and rappelling arrows with him he would be joining them on the other side of the building. Even if that may be a very bad idea the more he thinks about it.

 

It’s funny though, and he chuckles as he says his thought out loud. “She stole my move.”

 

He fiddles with the ear pieces until he gets it to the right frequency. “Yo, Phil. Send in the scavengers. The nest has been cleaned out.”

 

“Need clean up?” Clint can’t really fault Phil for asking. Usually Clint’s assignments end in bodies, not almost completely ruined tech and burned papers.

 

Papers…

 

He eyes, the thing he is known for, catches on a single paper that the ladies must have forgotten. Based on position, probably on Nat’s desk. Maybe things aren’t as bleak as they seem.

 

He finds the paper and turns it over to see a logo with a list of materials underneath. The list isn’t what he needs, but the logo is something he can follow.

 

“Nope.” He shoves the paper in a pocket. “Just the scavengers. Nat’s work place. I know you have the address.”

 

“You know they dislike like that nickname, Hawkeye.” Phil’s bland voice came over, and Clint knew that it was hiding humor.

 

He’s hilarious and he knows it. “Fine. I shall have to change it to vultures. Remind Vulture Kelly that he owes me a pack of donuts.”

 

Phil didn’t respond to that, or maybe it was just because Clint turned it off. His handler was okay with him doing things, but that doesn’t mean he was okay with everything. He still has a few hours left before the big guns are called in. Or at least the bigger teams.

 

He had to prove to SHIELD that he wasn’t going to let emotions get in the way of his job. If it comes down to it, he’ll do the right thing. The question at this point, was what that is.

 

Kill his wife or save her.

 

Clint is betting on the saving part. She left the paper behind as a trail. Natalie wants him to find her, even if she doesn’t know it herself.

 

He has the paper to prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint is an optimist, and a closet romantic. I'm not sure if I showed that well enough.   
> And Natasha? More of the realist.  
> Though the two of them are both fools in love. Or children, as Nat will probably end up saying.
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you readers enjoy this chapter as much as you seemed to have enjoyed the last few. The good thing about this story is that I have the story line pretty much mapped out (I'm trying to follow the movie pretty closely.)
> 
> Enjoy, folks. I love hearing from my readers.


	12. Chapter 11: Proving a Point

**Natasha:**

Natasha looked at the incoming security footage with a half-smile. Clint was standing the elevator listening to…well, elevator music. He actually seems to like the music, the idiot. She waits until he’s near the top of the building before stopping it between floors. A simple push of the button, and the music is replaced with her voice. “Hey, honey. Took you long enough.”

 

He looks straight up at the camera, even though she is certain it is impossible to be seen without knowing where to look. “You know me, Natalie. I go my own speed.” He accompanies the comment with a wink, and she rolls her eyes at his antics.

 

“Maybe an ultimatum is needed?” She gently taps the keys without pushing hard on any one button. “A ‘you stop chasing me and I stop chasing you’ kind of deal?” Nat knows her handler would never accept something like that, but wishes can still be thought out loud.

 

“It could work.” He actually looked as if considering her offer, and the twinge in chest was hard to ignore. “If I wasn’t the only one doing the chasing.”

 

The child. “Then I have no choice but to kill you.” She really didn’t, and everything was in place to easily take him out.

 

His pose is full Clint Barton, or at least the arrogant side of him. “Let me see…” He pointed at each wall and then the ceiling in concession. “Explosives on the brakes and support cable?”

 

One of her sisters is motioning, wide eyed at the information that Clint already knew. “You forgot the base, honey.” She knows she’s pushed one of his buttons at that moment, because he must not have known of that one.

 

“Oops.” He still doesn’t look that concerned. She’s starting to realize that the more dangerous a situation is, the more careless he was looking.

 

It’s hot. “If I push this button, the elevator you are in will fall fifteen stories.” She raises her hand over one of the keys on the board, one finger poised to push down on it.

 

“Go ahead.” He smirks, and a part of her wants to smack that look off of his face. Or to kiss it off. He was able to do that since about their second anniversary.

 

“You don’t think I won’t?” She’s the Black Widow, thank you very much. If she needed to kill a man, she would. She’s killed men she’s slept with before.

 

He’s looking straight at the camera for his last comment. “I know you won’t.”

 

“Good bye, Clint.” She didn’t push down on the button, but all of the screens turn to fuzz as an explosion rocks the building beside the truck that is their mobile command. She turns to Yelena, who had pushed the button on her own keyboard that would do the same thing as the button on hers. “What did you do?”

 

Yelena shrugs. “You said good bye.”

 

She has turned everything off inside of herself, even as the voice inside of her screams out his name. He can’t be dead. Not now. Not yet.

 

But he is.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He slides down to the bottom of the elevator he is in, happy he thought to go ahead and switched the cameras before coming in by way of the more public route. He really didn’t think she would push the button. He thought…

 

But it doesn’t matter what he thought. Not really. What’s done has been done…Nat pushed the button with the full intention of having him fall to his death in that elevator. Maybe there really was nothing there to save.

 

‘Maybe there never was…’ The voice of his ex-wife Bobbi echoes in his mind from when she handed him the divorce papers nearly a decade ago.

 

Obviously, he’s been wrong before about people. He always was better at seeing far away. Maybe he’s too close to see what’s right in front of him?

 

It wouldn’t be the first time. If Natalie had her way, if might be the last.

 

He just needed to know… he doesn’t know what he needs to know.

 

Her pushing that button should be all the answer he needs.

 

But it’s not.


	13. Chapter 12: A Strip Tease Dinner

**Natasha:**

She kept up the façade of nonchalance through the rest of the work day before going to the first place that she thought would be appropriate to drown her misery in. The place he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

 

She had known the fool was going to do it. She found the ring a week before he even got up the nerve to ask her to go to the restaurant. He had been nervous, like that of a child waiting to show his mum or pop a gift that he made himself. She had thought he was adorable.

 

Now he was gone.

 

She drank the alcohol that they brought her. A type of white wine that they claimed to be a house specialty. She wishes she had just gone home to drink the bottle of vodka she had in the kitchen. Except the memories there were worse than the ones here.

 

The ones here were from the beginning of their relationship, but at home were the ones closer to now. Over time, her emotions for the fool actually grew. She’s upset that he is gone. She wants to claim that it’s because of the blow to her cover. However, it was probably more than that.

 

Not that she’ll ever mention it to anyone other than herself inside her mind. If she even let a piece of her emotions loose, they’ll wipe her memory of everything she had of him. She can’t let that happen. There were too many happy ones that would be lost.

 

So here she is, sitting at the table they shared all those years ago. Him nervous and ready to come up with an excuse if her answer had been no. Her, well, she had a plan in place to say yes.

 

She holds her glass up for a refill, when callused fingers curl around her wrist and the thin neck of the bottle in her hand. “Need more?”

 

“Clint?” He survived the crash. How? How did he survive?

 

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but she can make out the tears in them. “Can I have this dance?” He’s already released her wrist, but had the glass in his hand. He sets it on the table in front of her, looking for all the world like a kick puppy.

 

Natasha takes his offered hand and lets him pull her to the dance floor. She hits him a bit harder on a spin in than she expected. But she isn’t shocked when he pulls the knife that was holstered on her thigh. “Sneaky.” She pushes her hand under his suit jacket to take the gun out the she suspected was there, and gave it a quick kick across the floor.

 

He finds one of her hidden guns with a sparkle in his eye, and places it in the punch bowl as the dancing brings them close to it. “We need to talk without pointy objects.” He smirked when she went flush against him. Talking about pointy objects… Natasha glances down at his waist with an eyebrow raised. “Just flesh. You know me.”

 

She knows his file. An operative as skilled as himself wouldn’t come in her with only one weapon. Right in the middle of the dance floor, she drops down and checks his ankles and empties the holsters found there. She’s gently pulled up. “I need to freshen up.” She twirls out of his arms and escapes up the stairs.

 

There, she plants another bomb with a smile and motions for the other women in there on out.

 

Another. Hopefully Clint is as good as his file said. She was wondering what he wanted to talk with her about.

 

It would be bad if he exploded before getting the chance.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He watches her go upstairs, fairly certain that he can get her to at least talk to him now. Well, he thought that before the explosion and smoke rolled out of the bathroom on the second floor. He’s already running that way to help move the civilians out of the way, and to make sure Nat wasn’t in the explosion.

 

He happens to turn and sees her moving out with the crowd of people. The look she gave him…He knows where she’s going to go. At least, he’s fairly certain he knows where she’s going.

 

He moves out into the crowd, when a random man bumps into him with the comment, “You’re beeping.”

 

Ugh, Clint knows he should have turned up his hearing aids this morning.

 

He yanks his suit jacket off and throws it in the trash can next to the road. Just in time, too, because the thing blows up as soon as he puts the lid on it.

 

He liked that jacket. It was one of the few that fit him correctly.

 

He smiles at the man driving a limousine before pulling him on out and taking the car. A few bruises would be better than having a top notch assassin running loose in the city.

 

Well, besides him.


	14. Chapter 13: Wow...Fighting is Such an Aphrodisiac

**Clint:**

He sped through the streets in his, uh, _borrowed_ vehicle and was grateful for the lack of traffic this time of night. He had to catch up with Nat. Trying to blow him up wasn’t really a final thing for him. He did shoot at her earlier, so that kind of made them even.

 

Kind of. Sort of. Not really, but he’s always been a sucker for punishment and a fool when it came to love. Ask Phil. Or Bobbi. Or Fury. Or Katy-Kate.

 

Whatever, that’s not the point. The point is that he needs to get to their house before Nat takes off again. He’s been able to find her so far because she hasn’t wanted to disappear. At least not yet.

 

He’s going fast enough so that he catches a glimpse of her entering their house, and so he knows that he’s not a complete idiot. He knew where she was going to go. However, he may need to go in by way of a side door. Nat probably has the front door booby-trapped. He would have, too, if he had been there earlier.

 

Though his methods would have the goal of capture. Knowing her file? She may lean more towards the deadly side.

 

He sneaks in, and grabs the gun that Phil insisted he put inside of the ugly fish thing Fury got him as a joke gift. It probably had cameras in it for eyes. That’s the bad part of working for the spy of spies, he’s always spying. Or seems to.

 

She shoots at his head and Clint drops down to avoid getting a head full of lead. “Is that your way of saying ‘I love you’?” He couldn’t have stopped the comment from leaving his mouth, even if he had tried.

 

It gave away his position, but the incoming shot gave away hers. “Still alive, honey?” Perfect. She was on the other side of the wall, on the kitchen side.

 

He sneaks further along before hitting a stand table. Why are there tables randomly in hallways? Seriously. He’s able to catch the ceramic thing that Nat brought home one day for decorating purposes. No hallway needs tables just for decorating purposes.

 

He’s not able to catch the small lid that went on the thing.

 

He drops down just as she blasted a hole in the wall bigger than his head. Okay, so she may be out for his head. But she still loves him. The people in his life show affection in odd ways, and her assassin way is probably similar to that of Phil’s.

 

The man did shoot him before to help a cover. It kept him alive.

 

He pokes his head up just to shoot a couple of shots over her head. He didn’t want to hurt her; he just needs her to not shoot him before they do something the both of them will regret. Like killing him.

 

She must have pulled the gas line, because of the random things he was aiming at causes an explosion to blast outward and surround the room in smoke. Now this just sucks.

 

His sight was his strength. His hearing? Not so much.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

Hawkeye, in his file, was an excellent shot. However, the way Clint was shooting at her, he was either a terrible shot or wasn’t aiming for her.

 

His mistake.

 

But she still needed to get him away from his gun. Which is why she made the explosion happen by pulling on the gas line that led to the stove. The explosion would throw him back and fill the room with smoke.

 

Her hand to hand combat skills were unmatched.

 

She slams into his body and is surprised that he’s able to stop her hit to his throat. He tries to hit her, but she barely has to move to avoid his more broadcasted looks. She’s able to flip him on his back, but before she can pin him he was already moving forward.

 

Nothing in his file showed that he was good at gymnastics.

 

She hides the surprise by hitting him again, straight in the face this time. He hits back, with more of a street brawler stance than what she has been trained against. He was slightly off balance, at least she thought he would be when she tries to sweep his legs from under him.

 

He goes down, just to do a back flip to land next to his gun. She’s already grabbing the gun she had stuffed under the couch for a just in case situation.

 

Both of their shots were lined up. If either of them pulled a trigger, they were sure to hit the intended target. Why wasn’t he shooting??

 

“Come on!” Nat bites out, anger and desperation fueling the fire in her voice.

 

Her eyes lock with his, and she’s not quite certain to make of the look in them. Her job is reading people, but in this moment she isn’t sure what she’s reading.

 

Lust? Love? And regret?

 

His smile is sad, but he slowly and deliberately lowers the weapon to rest on the ground beside him. “No.”

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He’s probably signing his death warrant, but he doesn’t care. He cannot pull the trigger. Shooting her would be like shooting himself. Screw his orders. He always took them as suggestions anyway.

 

Clint barely has time to catch the body slamming his before the momentum has them fall on the now completely ruined flooring. Not that he’s going to live long enough to really be that concerned about…

 

Her lips are on his, and her hips are straddling his own. She’s pulling on his clothes and he returns the favor in fervor.

 

She pulls back, and it’s strange being on the bottom. Not that he doesn't like it, but he expected her to be trying to choke him with her thighs or something. That wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Six months ago he thought he was going to be calling it quits by way of honey comb.

 

His missions just seem to get weirder and weirder over the years.

 

She’s still staring down at him, and he’s starting to think she’s changed her mind when she runs a finger over the old scar he got from a bullet would early on. “Durak.”

 

“What?” He doesn’t recognize that word in his, well, _distracted_ state.

 

She’s already bending down and distracting him even more.

 

He’ll ask her later. After he figures out how strong she is, and she learns how flexible he can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> durak = fool


	15. Chapter 14: High Speed Car Chases and...Confessions?

**Natasha:**

A sound she recognizes from the training she has been through since childhood has her jerk awake and throw on the clothes beside her. Someone was trying to enter the house. Stealthily.

 

She shakes Clint beside her and with a finger to her lips, motions for him to get dressed. He nods pulls on his pants. Before he can find his shirt, he’s pulling her down at something he saw and she didn’t. Someone had entered through the kitchen door and shooting at where she had been just a moment before.

 

She doesn’t have time to turn to shoot the enemy before he’s falling, a bullet wound in the center of his forehead. Now this is the Hawkeye in the file. She can believe the man in front of her to be the one Hydra had wanted on their side, and SHIELD has fought so hard to keep.

 

But now isn’t the time for such thoughts. They need to get out of there. Clint is heading to the front door, but she’s the one to pull him down at the bullets ripping through the walls and her curtain. She just bought it last week to freshen up the room.

 

It was really ugly, if she thinks back on it.

 

But now isn’t the time. She has to get herself and Clint out of here. She won’t leave him behind. It’s not an option in this assignment.

 

Hydra wanted Clint before, so maybe the Red Room will accept him now. He can’t be her enemy. It isn’t an option. Even if, based on the goons coming right at them, there was a price put on both of their heads by her organization.

 

She takes out three of them coming her way and turns to the fourth to watch him go down by a hit from Clint. Natasha nods, grateful for his help even if she didn’t need it. She looks around, trying to find an escape route when she sees the minivan across the street. Perfect.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

One of the goons...

 

Hey, he knows that guy.

 

Anyway, Clint knocks him out and turns to see Nat already opening the passenger side and he races to get into the driver. He looks for a key before bending down to hotwire the thing. It took a few seconds (he’s a bit out of practice) before the minivan starts and he pulls out onto the road. Running over the guy he just knocked out.

 

Oops.

 

She’s shooting at the people following them in dark SUV’s. (Note: Ask Phil why every government agency has dark SUV’s.) He cuts the wheel when one of the people shoots at them and is actually able to shoot the dashboard.

 

“Seriously?” If he wasn’t driving, he is positive Nat would be shooting him at the why he’s swerving all of the road.

 

He is so not used to this vehicle. He’s used to flying. “Evasive driving.” He cuts into the other lane to hit the SUV coming up on the side. Never let them get in front. He remembers that lesson well. (A mission that ended with him escaping from a cave/cell place and tied up to what remained of that handler. Not his fault.)

 

“Let me drive.” Nat orders, but he ignores her in favor of using the minivan as a battering ram to run one of the SUV’s on their tail over a bridge. “I’m the suburban house wife, remember?” She’s probably a little annoyed at that last turn that had her nearly loose her gun.

 

He waits for her to grab ahold of the steering wheel and slipping underneath her for her to take the seat. He grabs one of the guns they actually grabbed and slides into the back where there is no cover, and he has perfect lines of sight. He aims for the driver, and is annoyed that it is stopped by the glass. “Bullet proof?” He asks Nat even as he decides on what else to aim for. “Oh, and by the way. Your roast was overcooked.”

 

“Seriously?” She cuts the wheel as though about to spin and he just shoots out one of the tires. “I didn’t even cook that.”

 

Clint looks at the gun, in annoyance that the gun has jammed. There’s another reason why he prefers his bow. “Really?” He puts that gun down and grabs another one. Four more SUV’s to go, and he has what looks to be five bullets. Hmm, one to spare.

 

“I’ve never cooked a day in my life.” Natasha tells him, and he glances her way as he lets off another shot. Two for the price of one in this case. The SUV he took out just hit one of the others. Nice, the reminds him he should have Nat play some pool with him.

 

He looks between the remaining two SUV’s, and ducks when one of the passengers actually decides to try to shoot at him. Their aim is awful. “Any other lies?”

 

He takes the moment took glance her way to see she does not look happy with him. “I’m an orphan.”

 

Clint decides to take out the shooter before the entire vehicle. Just because. He also decides to meet her truth with one he hasn’t told her. “I was married before.” He goes ahead and take out the vehicle when she’s hitting at his head. “Ow! What did I do?!”

 

“What’s her name and social security number?” He’s just a little bit scared of her tone.

 

Okay, maybe a bit more than a little bit.

 

She must have been getting impatient because she slams on the brakes and he barely has time to grab a hold of something when she’s shooting at the remaining SUV and finishing the spin to keep driving forward. A nice 360. She should go driving with Phil sometime.

 

Clint sighs as he climbs into the passenger seat from where he had been holding onto some kind of belt thing in the back. “You’re not going to kill her.”


	16. Chapter 15: We Need to Talk/Make a Plan

**Natasha:**

After ditching the nearly destroyed minivan and stealing yet another vehicle, Clint gave voice to his plan. It’s a stupid a plan.

 

“Nat, come on. I trust Phil with my life.” He was trying to convince her that his plan wasn’t a complete idiocy. It still was.

 

It doesn’t matter what he was thinking, but going to a _handler_ is one of the worst ideas he could possibly come up. “And that is what he’ll take if you show up with an enemy agent.” Clint really can be a child at the best times.

 

The looks on his face was resolute, and five years of marriage told her he could be stubborn when he wanted to be. “He won’t.” He touched his ear, and she’s confused for a moment. “Hey, Phil. Meet me at the coffee shop.” Then she isn’t. She’s pissed.

 

“You have a communicator???” She’s been angry at him since she learned about him being married before. Natasha isn’t about to touch on why that makes her so angry.

 

Might be because it’s something he kept from her. Which is a bit hypocritical since hardly anything she’s told him about her past is truth.

 

Or the biggest reason could be jealousy. Maybe.

 

“Yep.” He looks smug when he answers her question, which just makes her all the more annoyed. He’s like a puppy that just returned his owner their chewed up house shoe. It’s like he’s completely oblivious to how close he is to having something slid between his ribs.

 

“How do you know they aren’t tracking you through that?!” Her voice is still low enough to be considered conversational, but the edge to it is as though she is yelling at him. And she is. How could he be so foolish.

 

“I know Phil.” Clint’s look is a little less smug now, but he’s still not apologetic. “Anyway, they’re a part of my hearing aids.”

 

He wears hearing aids? How hadn’t she noticed?

 

“You don’t have to come with me to the meeting site.” Clint tells her, but she can see the disappointment. He wants her to meet his handler.

 

She knows she’s going to regret this. “Five minutes.” His smile is back to radiant as he walks a down and across the street to a little coffee shop.

 

That was five minutes ago, and she had a choice to make.

 

A choice to go into the shop after him, or to take off and leave him behind.

 

It really isn’t a choice in her mind.

 

Natasha finds herself pushing open the coffee shop door and looking to Clint waving his hands in the air as if explaining something that he can’t quite keep all the way in, and a bland looking man in a suit sitting across from him. The slight bulging of his suit tells her he is carrying some kind of weapon.

 

The man in the suit notices her before Clint, but Clint is the one she walks up behind and places her hands on his shoulders. “Natasha Romanoff. You must be Phil Coulson?”

 

She is very much impressed when he doesn’t flinch, even though she knows recognition shines in his eyes.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

“Wait.” Clint held up a hand to Nat, not at all surprised that she had been able to sneak up on him from behind. “Natasha Romanoff? You’re not _a_ Black Widow, but _The_ Black Widow?” Okay, he probably shouldn’t be as surprised as he is, but he is. Nat removes her hands from his shoulders, and he can feel the loss.

 

She pulls up a chair from the neighboring table and smiles at Phil. “Does that change any of your plans, Coulson?”

 

“Absolutely not, Mrs. Barton.” Phil unfolds a napkin without showing any of the emotions Clint knows must be going on underneath the surface. “You are still the wife of a Class 7 SHIELD Agent.”

 

Clint stops fiddling with the bagel at that point. “Seven? I thought I was eight.” He actually takes great pride in seeing how far up he can go, and how low a single prank can pull him back.

 

“You were demoted after putting shaving cream in the director’s coffee.” Phil takes a sip of his own, gently cooling it beforehand.

 

Clint had forgotten about doing that the last time he was at headquarters. He didn’t think it was actually Fury’s coffee cup, though. He was aiming for May’s. “Oops.” Nat, _Natasha_ , was looking at him strangely.

 

“The plan?” Nat gently prodded, and Clint was having fun watching the two of them interact. It was like they were each waiting for the other to break from some sort of mask. It’s hilarious.

 

“Ah, yes.” Phil passed a phone to her, and Clint knew he was slightly pouting. “I called the director earlier. He’s reprimanded the agent that put the price on your head.” Phil never misses anything, and his voice slightly dropped into what Clint would call droll. “And I have a gift for you, Agent.”

 

Phil pointedly glances down at a case beside their table, and he can’t help the smile that covers his face. “I love you.” Clint knows what is in that case, and he loves the fact that Phil knows him so well.

 

“There were three agencies that put prices on your heads.” Phil stands, as though the conversation is done, and to him it probably was. “Now there are two. Your job, Agent Barton and Ms. Romanoff, is to either make it seem to be too much trouble, or to stop them.” He leaves a three-dollar tip on the table and led the way out.

 

Nat takes Phil’s seat in front of him, and he replays how Phil called her Ms. Romanoff instead of Mrs. Barton. A slight stub, but it was still there. “So, three?”

 

“The Red Room will leave us mostly alone.” Natasha went ahead and started talking, her watching his back the entire time. “The price is mostly for show, at least until they learn I’ve really changed sides.”

 

He felt hope bloom in him, and Clint knows his face was sporting large smile. “You’ve changed sides?” Her words are something that he’ll be sure to remember.

 

“Clint.” Her voice is reprimanding, but like all the times when his superior’s tried to call him back in, he ignored it. “We have to find the third group. But where do we look?”

 

Clint moved around the pieces inside of his mind, and only one piece didn’t quite fit. “To our most recent failure.” He smiled when she nodded, because he knows she got it.

 

They have to get to their original target, because the reason that was in the SHIELD file feels a bit fishy to him.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

They left the coffee shop a few hours ago and pulled up next to the place Natasha had tracked the target to. The phone had been a handy gift. Untraceable. She had been able to call in contacts without worry of being traced. The case though, had been a bit of a surprise.

 

It held a bow, at least it had folded out to one, some arrows (though not Clint’s favorite he had complained), and a key to a security locker. The security locker held surveillance equipment, suits, body armor, weapons, and fake identities. She had her own stashes, but it had been nice to get into someone else’s without having to bother any of her own.

 

They waited until after dark to go for the next part of the plan. Originally, she was going to go in with Clint playing the eyes in the sky, but he told her not to worry. (His exact wording was “I knew I was going to end up in the sewers some point this month, ugh.”) So, he was infiltrating with her as the guide.

 

It wasn’t going as well as planned.

 

“I said to go left.”  Usually she was the one in the field, even if she did appreciate him taking the smelly entrance instead of her.

 

She watches through the skin that he hits the wall to his left. “No left. No right. I can go forward or backward.” She could tell she hit a nerve by his tone, but that didn’t make any sense.

 

Not him being annoyed, but more about the why behind the blue prints being wrong. “Then come back.” She glanced back at the screen that gave her the same view as he had. Seriously? The idiot was going forward. “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“Going forward.” Clint answered her, but that wasn’t the answer that she wanted.

 

“I can see that.” She looked between the different pages on the screen in annoyance. Annoyed at both him and things not going according to plan. “I told you to come back.”

 

“No time.” He answered, and he didn’t answer any more.

 

She watched as he pushed up the sewer cover withheld breath. The entrance could be the most dangerous because they couldn’t tell how many were in there, nor where they were at. She’s able to make out flashes of light and shadows as people shot at him.

 

She had to decide whether to go in after him or to wait for him to come out. She’s able to make out that the camera is still moving as the targets drop.

 

Then the camera fuzzes out.

 

Ten minutes after the camera cuts out is what they came up with before he entered.

 

Ten minutes until she took off, with or without him, to the rendezvous point.

 

Ten minutes.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

He knew he was going to end up sewers way before any of this started. He knew it, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Nat seemed ready to go, but even he knows that between the two of them he has more experience with infiltration this way. (She’s more wine, dine, and then kill. At least according to the file he may or may not have memorized. He has a reputation to uphold.) Which is why he pushed the laptop back into her hands and grumbled about alligators.

 

He has met an alligator going the sewer route before. Though that was in some country in Africa. Or maybe Asia. Meh, one of them. He does know that there are rats and turtles in the sewers in New York City (They like pizza nearly as much as he and Lucky does.).

 

Nat is yelling in the com about turning left. But there is NO left. Really, this is like the fourth time her blueprint has been wrong. At this point it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is wrong. He basically ignores her order for him to come back. They really do not have the time to come up with a new plan.

 

He hops out of the sewers. Takes out a few guards. Finds the vents, climbs through them for a while before dropping down into the cell to inject the target with some sleeping medicine (fine, a tranquilizer) and shove the dude back into the vents.

 

He’s over a minute late getting back to the van but still waves at Nat with the target thrown over his shoulder in a fire man lift. Luckily for them, the target is a small man.

 

No communication is needed, and she’s burning rubber to get them to the place they picked out earlier. A simple motel on the outskirts of town known for turning the other way. He’s been there before, on an assignment with a different name, but he remembered how the place worked.

 

“I told you to come back.” Nat glared his way as she shoved the vehicle into park. Yeah, she may be just a little bit angry with him.

 

He opens the back to get out the package. “No time.” She opens the door, already ready with duct tape and zip ties. He puts the target in the chair, a glance going over how she’s binding him the chair. He definitely won’t be getting out of that. “If I had gone back, they may have moved him.”

 

She stands from where she just finished binding his foot and her glare is still firmly in place. “If the blueprint was wrong, how many other pieces of information could have been wrong? Did you think about that? It could have been a trap. The target may not have been in there. There could have been more guards…”

 

“Only three more.” Clint shrugged. Really, three more guards wasn’t that big of a deal. Neither was having the wrong blue prints. He’s been sent in with less information. She probably has, too. “We got out. Anyway, I had you for backup.”

 

She suddenly slapped the guy, as though trying to wake him up. “I was going to leave you.” The man in the chair may be slowly waking up. Maybe. Or he could still be moving from that hit.

 

His smile is goofy, and Clint didn’t care. He knew better. If she had been going to leave, she would have left at ten minutes on the dot, and not waited a minute more.

 

The guy must have been waking up, because his eyes flutter open, and Clint is in awe watching her work. Interrogation isn’t his strong suit (he feels bad for the bad guy, don’t judge), and it’s nice letting someone else do it instead of himself.

 

They learn that the man was sent by The World Council (Clint is definitely calling Fury to yell at him for not telling him about that), with the goal of having the two of them kill each other off. “Two agents from opposing sides? They don’t like that kind of thing.” The target had explained, and the information about the retrieval experts not being able to be called off also wasn’t a surprise.

 

Though an annoyance. They couldn’t just tell the council to buzz off. Instead, they had to tell all of the people coming after them to buzz off. Nearly an impossible task.

 

One moment, though, really had him freeze. Nat was about to end the target right then and there. “Wait.” He called to her. “There’s no reason to kill him.”

 

He saw what looked like an eye roll from her, but she still pulled the knife away. “We have the information that we need. There’s no reason to leave him alive.” No emotion in her voice, and he could tell this was the Widow in front of him. The professional worker willing to do whatever it took to get to the end goal.

 

He reaches for the knife, just a tinsy bit surprised that she let him take it. “He knows nothing on us.” She already took the photo the target had of them and they weren’t about to leave that behind. “And his people will be looking for him.” Yeah, her and Phil must have gone to the same class in how to show so much expression in what looks nearly blank. “So, why not leave him behind for them to deal with? He obviously failed his assignment.” Let them fill in the blanks there.

 

The man in the chair looks scared now that Clint has said the thought out loud. Nat is calculating, a look similar to Phil or Fury whenever they were hatching up a plan and didn’t know he was there. “Fine.”

 

They were going to need a new plan, though. The plan of just sending the message back through the original target was a bust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the only chapter for today. I'm getting kind of tired of writing. Though this is a long one. Usually I split a chapter this long into two. You readers are lucky in a way. :)


	17. Chapter 16: The New Plan...

**Clint:**

The Council using private contractors really threw a wrench in whatever plan Clint had to push forward from this point. He had thought that it would be a simple fix, sort of. Mostly, go in, threaten the idiot (maybe have to kill a few people), and everything would be fixed. At least if his plan went as well as it sounded in his mind.

 

He knew a person who knew a person who could at least _talk_ to the council and recommend getting the price taken off their heads. That doesn’t mean that Nat will want to go through with the plan.

 

“We need a plan.” Natasha is typing away at something on the computer she still had ahold of. Maybe looking for alternates to a plan that originally would have worked perfectly.

 

Clint grabs an ear piece, “I may already have one.” He didn’t elaborate, but he pushed the button to contact his handler. “Phil? It’s the Council. Mind getting them off my tail?”

 

“Will do. Any other assistance, Hawkeye?” Clint knows Phil is probably just a bit upset with him by that tone. Or he could be in the middle of something. Either one is possible with that tone.

 

“Nope.” Clint turns off the com and turns to his wife with a smile. “I have someone working on the council. The problem is the private contractors.”

 

Natasha types some more on the computer before slamming it shut in anger. “We have to take them all out.” Now that is an impossible plan.

 

But she does have a point. Private contractors aren’t centralized with a head leader that can be threatened off. Or replaced by someone that was easily so. The only sure fire way of making them stop was to make it a group attack. Basically, take out every single one of the foes.

 

He holds out his hand, already pushing around the pieces to find the best option. “What were you looking for?”

 

Her look tells him that she thinks he’s a moron, but most people have thought that at least once in his company. “Safe house. Or a place to set a trap.” They each knew different parts of their city more intimately than the other.

 

She knew the politicians, and he knew the slum lords.

 

He opens up the computer to look over the map. “There.” He points at a mall that he knows shuts down early. “Nobody is in there after eight. Even the security guards leave with the last crowd.”

 

Natasha brought up plans for the mall he knew because he slept in it a couple of times. She nods at whatever she’s seeing, and he knows that something might actually be going right today.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

Clint’s suggestion is almost perfect for what she knows he’s planning at the same time she is. The building is large with multiple levels. It would be easy enough for the two of them to go floor to floor and take out the contractors coming for them.

 

Also, the place was filled with rooms that contained electronics, clothing, weapons, and other things that they could easily use to help in their fight with them. It could work for them.

 

But before she can send out a signal to draw the wasps to her web, she needed to make certain that web was in good shape. There was no need to draw the wasps in when the web still needed fixing.

 

Thought the place was looking like the best way to set the trap.

 

She drives to the mall, and she walks through the entire building. Or at least the pieces that were public access. She makes notes on the way through, talking to Clint as she looks at the place. Clint was up in the vents looking at the places that others would overlook.

 

“Think it will work?” Clint’s voice came in her ear, and she smiled as she looked around the place filled with people.

 

Tonight, it will be empty and free to be their playground. “Yes, it will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter actually took forever to write. I already wrote the later ones and most of something else before coming back to this one. Hopefully it doesn't sound as bad as I feel it does.


	18. Chapter 17: Fight for Our Lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a warning...this is an action scene. Maybe not be my best work.

**Natasha:**

Clint picked the mall, and Natasha had to agree with him. The place had multiple levels and many hidden places for the both of them. Though bad if from the other angle, the both of them knew the mall fairly well and could defend it.

 

The others would be on the offensive, and while they had numbers, her and Clint had the high ground.

 

Theoretically.

 

Though she knew things didn’t always go according to plan, she’s starting to think that definitely counted with Clint, some things did go. Especially when the plan was well thought out with multiple contingencies. It just has to work. She didn’t go through all of this just to die in a hail of bullets.

 

Thought that would be a great way to go.

 

She grabs a suit to cover the body armor. There’s no need to let the people coming after them to know that they had more than just skin and cloth protecting their insides. She quickly finds one in Clint’s size and throws it his way.

 

He looks confused, but is already throwing the outfit on over top the full suited body armor that they had picked up at the warehouse earlier (there hadn’t been anything in there to actually fit her, but the armor was close). She missed her own suit, but knew what she had on would have to do. If they survive this, she’ll get herself something that fits better. Who knew when someone would come after them again?

 

After dressing, they pass through the cooking utensils and she grabs a few knives. She passes a handful to Clint, knowing that long range weapons were more his thing and having some knives to throw would be good to go with his bow and guns. Yes, the idiot brought his bow. Speed would be of necessity, but all he did was smirk when she brought it up.

 

“I need my trademark.” He winked when he threw the bow onto his back. At least he had grabbed a couple of guns as well.

 

The plan was to start from the top and move downward. Once they take out the top layer, they can move downward to the basement level to escape. It was a suicide mission, but one that she was willing to go on. They can’t move forward with their lives if they were always looking back.

 

Also, this was the only option they had. They could only run so far from these specific people. More would always be coming after them, but this would be the bulk of their problems.

 

She breaks one of the men’s necks and Clint deftly breaks another one. Outnumbered and outgunned, the best way of attacking is by silence. They had to eliminate as many of the enemy as possible. She blames Clint for fumbling in her way for the knife hitting his leg.

 

He glares, but just pulls it out for use later. At least it wasn’t a kill throw.

 

Shooting from overhead has them both duck down and Natasha leading the way to the elevators, Clint covering her back in their unexpected retreat. “That was close.” Clint mumbled as he flicked through his arrows, as though deciding which one would be the best the next time the door opens. He picks one, even though Nat can’t really tell the difference between them.

 

“Not really.” She’s been in closer circumstances, and has lived through them. Though Clint seems to be the more inexperienced of the two when it comes to close cases. His specialty was killing from a distance, while hers was usually more close and personal.

 

He puts the arrow at the ready, and she realizes this is the first time he actually took out his bow. Earlier, he had used the guns to cover their backs or the very unbalanced knives. The knives had hit every target, though. She could be impressed with that.

 

There’s a slight change in the air, and she readies for the doors to slide open. She gets a few shots off, and so do the outsiders, but Clint releases one arrow that explodes on impact. The doors have just shut when he shrugs at her accusing look. Why didn’t he tell her what those things could do? “A level 2 exploding arrow. Five might take down this building. I haven’t used it yet.”

 

All of the arrows looked the same to her, so she would have to take his word on it. They each had their own expertise, and his seemed to be pushed towards that archaic weapon he is so fond of.

 

The bottom floor. The live or die floor.

 

“I go high, and you go low.” Natasha gives the order to him, already getting ready for the ambush about to happen.

 

Clint just shakes his head. “I’m long range. I’ll go high.” The loaded arrow is pointed slightly up, and she points her weapons lower. He does have a point.

 

The doors open and they step out, shooting down the enemies that were circling them on all sides. Clint was firing arrows at a speed she wouldn’t believe possible, and she was taking down every one of them that her bullets hit. Everything is going fine. Better than fine, really.

 

Until it doesn’t.

 

The two of them had been separated, Clint climbing on the bare boards of the ceiling and taking out targets from there as she kept the focus on her. Someone must have realized the threat that he was, because he was falling from his perch.

 

Instinct, nothing else, drove her to cover him and pull the archer towards the storage closet they had made note of early on. Of a just in case exit strategy.

 

She hadn’t thought they would need to use it.

 

She shoves him in the room first and jumps in behind him, barely remembering to close the door behind her. No sight lines for the enemy.

 

“Clint.” She pulls at his clothes, and he’s already grumbling and pulling off his shirt.

 

“Just clipped.” He’s reaching for her, and she can’t quite understand why he looks so worried. He’s the one that was hit. “You?”

 

Natasha looks down at her shirt, almost completely torn to shreds by the amount of bullets that hit it. A very good thing they decided to put on body armor then. “No hits.”

 

She sees blood on his left arm and right leg. He was injured which changes the plan. The original plan had both of them either dying or escaping in one piece.

 

“Good.” His voice drags her thoughts away from plans and exit strategies. “You can get out.”

 

What? What in the world was he talking about? Did he seriously think she’d leave him behind? After everything? “No.”

 

 

 

**Clint:**

Clint knows he’s hurt, and that means the chances of both of them escaping alive just went down to something like 0.0001%. But one person escaping to live another day? Pretty high up. Especially if that other person is Nat. She hasn’t been hit. By all reasoning, she should be able to escape and start a new life at SHIELD.

 

He’s an old man who shoots a bow. Of the two of them, she needs to be able to live. She has the chance to keep fighting. She has the…

 

“No.” Nat answers him, and he feels like another piece of hope he had was destroyed. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

 

She has to! Doesn’t she understand? “I’ve been hit, Nat. My response time will be slower.” Which leads back to the problem. Most likely he won’t be able to make it out.

 

Nat suddenly grabs his hands and his eyes move from focusing on the door to her face. “For better or worse.” What is she talking abo…Their wedding vowels? “I promised you on that day, as you did for me.”

 

Well, he also promised that to Bobbi. He knows how well that turned out.

 

“You can escape.” Clint has to get her to leave, to give her the second chance that Phil gave him all those years ago. Nat deserves that. “To start over. A new life.” Without him, but that can be either a plus or negative at this point if he thinks about it.

 

He can see her rolling her eyes, and knows whatever she’ll say won’t be what he wants. “Not without you, durak.”

 

He holds her hands in his, and he can hear the bullets outside the door coming at a near steady pace. Their protection won’t stand up for long. “I love you.” She helps him to his feet, and they each get ready for the firefight of their life.

 

Just before pushing the door open, she turns to him to have the last word. “Love is for children.”

 

Nat throws the door open and Clint shoots two arrows out. One to shroud the place in smoke, and the other to give off a high pitch sound. One to distort sight and the other to just plain disorient. Clint has Nat’s back and she has his.

 

The shoot down the people that were coming after them, dodging the bullets that were heading their way. They don’t count. They don’t think. They move together in a dance that they never had done before; each of them knowing how the other is going to move before they have the chance to do so.

 

Partners in every sense of the word.

 

The dust and smoke finally clears so they can look about at their handiwork. Bodies had fallen from various places in their death, and some hung from where gravity has yet to drag them down. It was chaotic. It was painful and bloody. Things were broken that could never be fixed again.

 

But sometimes the most broken could do the most saving, because they know how to put themselves back together.

 

Clint knew what it was like to be broken, and looking at Nat, so did she. Together, their edges could fit together and makes things not seem so destroyed.

 

They were safe, together.

 

And Clint was already working on a plan to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting one more chapter up to tonight, the Epilogue.
> 
> I actually like this chapter. Hopefully you all will like it, too.


	19. Epilogue: New Life with SHIELD

**Clint:**

It may not have been his best idea to take a known operative into SHIELD headquarters, but none of his ideas have hardly ever sounded or looked good at the beginning. They just ended up being wonderful near the end of them. Look at him marrying Nat? It didn’t look like the best thing in the world, but look at how that turned out!

 

Maybe not his best example, but it was his most recent one.

 

There was also him buying the apartment building. Though that did have the Tracksuit Mafia guys coming after him.

 

Well, there was him saving Katy-Kate. That’s a good one that hasn’t bit him. She’s even his mentee now! See? A good plan.

 

Speaking of Katy-Kate, she’s right there…with a very angry look on her face. Okay, so maybe he might have been thinking positive a bit too…

 

His face it stinging and arms are already surrounding him in a hug and he wraps his non-sling bound arm around her. “Hey, what’s wrong, Katy-Kate?” He looks up to see Nat holding a gun on her and he does a quick shake of his head. He really didn’t want his wife to kill his mentee. Really REALLY bad for his image. Not that he had that big of one to hold up.

 

“You idiot!” Clint thinks he prefers it when she was crying, because Katy-Kate yelling at him was not an improvement. “Why didn’t you call me? You were shot?!” It seemed she just noticed because she hit again in the chest. She must have been training with Agent May again.

 

Now he would be okay with Nat coming to his defense, but after putting the gun away she looked somewhat amused at the interaction. ‘Save me.’ He mouthed at her, but she just shook her head with a large smile covering her face.

 

Katy-Kate eventually stops reprimanding him when Agent Coulson came up to the three of them. “Director Fury wishes to speak to Agent Barton and Mrs. Barton immediately.”

 

Even Clint is surprised at how Kate turned on the older agent in complete fury. Haha, furious at Fury.

 

“He has been _shot_!” Kate’s voice raises a couple of octaves and decibel levels. “You can tell Fury to go shove it. Clint is not going on another mission with a bullet in his arm!” It was kind of sweet at how protective she was being, but he can’t let her fight his battles.

 

Or get in trouble for him.

 

He reaches for her arm, and he keeps his voice serious. “I’m fine, Katy-Kate. You know Coulson won’t let me do anything I’m not ready for.” She doesn’t look like she believes him, but he’s already following Coulson with Nat at his side.

 

It’s a few moments before Nat gives her opinion. They’re right outside of the door, so that might be the reason. “I like her.”

 

Clint rolls his eyes at that. “She’s _my_ mentee. You can’t have her.” The look in Nat’s eyes makes him think that she would be happy training Kate Bishop.

 

“Married couple.” Nat smiles his way, a bit like that of a shark that just found a prey ready to sink its teeth in. “What’s yours is also mine.”

 

He hadn’t thought of that…

 

Coulson opens the door, apparently oblivious to the bickering couple behind him. Great, just great. Time for Fury to sink his claws into him.

 

Clint bets the director is still not over the coffee thing.

 

 

 

**Natasha:**

Natasha pulled the gun without thinking, automatically going to her husband’s defense. When he didn’t fight back but just started asking his attacker questions, she knew that he was fine. The glare he sent her way also pushed her to put the gun up. No reason to draw attention by pulling a weapon on a potential agent SHIELD’s headquarters.

 

Anyway, she’s going to need as many allies as possible in this new world.

 

The younger woman yelling at Clint…she likes the fire in her. Really, it takes guts to be able to yell at a man that has had the training, and paid, to kill. When the woman, Katy-Kate? turns on Coulson to yell at him as well, that just set the woman squarely in her like zone. Maybe Kate is a bit foolish in yelling at these men, maybe.

 

Also, this was showing her that SHIELD wasn’t the same as the Red Room. In the Red Room, she would have been severely punished, or even permanently _dismissed_ (killed) for such. It was refreshing.

 

Still she follows Coulson as he leads them away from her, and she gives Clint her opinion. “I like her.” It really would be a great thing to be able to train her. Or at least spend some time with someone that knows Clint so well.

 

“She’s _my_ mentee.” Natasha can hear the emphasis, and smiles at that. The more she learns about this side of Clint, the more she can see that the people around him genuinely care for the fool. “You can’t have her.”

 

Maybe someday she’ll have something like that, especially if Clint has his way. “Married couple.” She reminds him, ready to see if the director will order her execution, release, or any number of things. “What’s yours is also mine.”

 

By his look, he didn’t think of that. Too bad she didn’t have time to soak in his shock, because they are already moving forward into an office that she both dreaded entering, and yet anticipated. Clint believed that this was a place to get a new start, to wipe free some of the red in her ledger.

 

“Agent Coulson, Agent Barton, Mrs. Barton.” The man behind the large desk, one eye looking at them while the other is covered in an eye patch; the spy of the spies, Director Nick Fury. “You three have caused quite a bit of damage these past few days.”

 

Clint interrupts, because of course its Clint who has a death wish. “Mostly me, sir.” His salute is haphazard, as though not caring about appearances.

 

Director Fury ignores him. “However, each of you have skills that can still be utilized by this institution.” His one eye goes to each one of them, before staying on Natasha. “Depending upon Mrs. Barton’s choice.” He passes her a file, and she knows this isn’t possible.

 

It’s a file with her name, and what looks to be a completed application inside of it.

 

“I put it under your maiden name.” Director Fury spoke, as though he wasn’t giving her a gift that she didn’t think she would get to see. “So you won’t have any negative connections to the buffoon you married.”

 

“Hey!” Clint sounds offended, but she knows that he isn’t really. The tone was too bright for him if his emotions had truly been hurt.

 

It took just a moment, but her decision had already been made when she held the gun to his head and couldn’t pull the trigger. “Yes.”

 

Director Fury took that as an invitation to move on to the next business, because he was already passing out more files. “After your training and oath,” he explained after each of them held a new file in their hands that looked similar to what the other two were holding, “you will join Agents Coulson and Barton in being Strike Team Delta. Classes start on Monday. Dismissed.”

 

Coulson is already outside, moving nearly as silently as she could. Clint is bounding ahead, a lot more annoying than usual.

 

“And Barton?” Clint stopped on his journey to the door, and let Nat move on ahead of him. “The next time you put shaving cream in my coffee, I’ll take your range.”

 

“It wasn’t meant for you!!” Clint yells and is already pushing past her and doing some kind of dance thing in the hallway. How someone as energetic as him could also double as a super sniper she’ll never know, but she does love him.

 

Because the best lies are built on truth, she can admit the truth at least to herself.

 

She’ll give her life for him, and she knows that he’ll do the same for her.

 

Partners in every way.

 

 

 

 

 

_3-4 years later_

**New Recruit: Probate Agent Darcy Lewis**

Darcy was recruited because she tazed Agent Phil Coulson when she thought he was attacking her friend. He wasn’t, but that’s not what she cared about at that moment. She didn’t know he was an Agent of SHIELD then, but she did find out when he came to offer her a job not long afterwards. He claimed she had spunk and would be good for the agency.

 

She’s not so sure about that.

 

In class with all of the new recruits, she learned about Strike Team Delta. It was a bit of required reading for the new students, and a bit of bragging rights from the older students and teachers that had stories about them. The stories made the three members that made up the team seem to be larger than life, especially the agents Hawkeye and Black Widow, aka Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff respectively.

 

Which is why when she saw Black Widow heading her way, Darcy automatically ducked into the side room and pretended that she had been training the entire time. (Instead of avoiding Agent Donovan and the class dealing with clean up.) She watches as the older woman takes some kind of powder out of her pocket and sprinkles it over someone’s training outfit. Darcy hasn’t been there long enough to be able to quite figure out whose suit it was.

 

A few hours later, during basic hand-to-hand combat. Agent May kept twitching during the entire lesson, finally breaking down when there were only a couple of students left in the room. “Barton! Get your ass out of those vents now!!!”

 

There was a muffled crash and a body is landing not far from where class had been. “Hey, May. What’s the matter?” A door shut from the back and when Darcy turned, she saw Agent Romanoff enter as well. The two legendary agents were both in the training area.

 

“You put itching powder in my suit again.” Agent May looked ready to kill someone, and by the way she was looking at Agent Barton, it was going to be him.

 

Romanoff’s smile was pure teeth, and Barton’s glare was straight at the Black Widow, before turning back to the training agent with smile that butter wouldn’t melt from. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Before taking off at a run and leaping back into the vents.

 

Agent May stalked off to the showers, grumbling the entire time. Which just seemed to break the tension in the room and the other students took off as well.

 

Agent Romanoff, aka Black Widow, left after all of the students. Darcy knew what she saw, but didn’t know who or even if she should tell anyone.

 

A bland voice behind her had Darcy turning in shock. “This is going to be a long three months.” It was Agent Coulson, the very agent that had brought her here.

 

“Sir?” This was the first time he had approached her since giving her a job here. He looked the same as he did the last time she saw him, not a piece of his suit out of place.

 

“Agent Romanoff just started a prank war with Agent Barton.” Coulson explained, his voice not changing inflection. He looked straight at her, a knowing look in his eye. “It is best to stay out of the way of the Barton’s at this time, Darcy Lewis. You don’t want to be in their line of fire.”

 

Darcy watches as the bland agent she tazed a few months ago walk on out of the training area. It took a moment for everything to connect in her mind.

 

Barton’s? Prank war?

 

The legendary agents of SHIELD, the ones that were whispered about in either fear or awe depending on the person, were having a prank war. And the two of them were together.

 

Darcy wanted to run and tell her best friend Jane all about it, but Coulson’s warning jumped to mind. Yeah, she really didn’t want to be in the sight lines of either agent. She liked not having itching powder in her clothes.

 

Or shaving cream in her coffee, if the yelling she’s hearing right now is any indication. Director Fury does not like anyone messing with his coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada! The finish of this story. I hope you all enjoy the cameos I added. :)
> 
> Remember, I love hearing people's opinions about my work.


	20. Extra: 1+1=4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't really a part of the story, but can be read as part of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a gift for ClintandNatasha who mentioned that they would be great parents.

**Natasha:**

Some agents double as teachers for the new recruits. Those that are sent on quite a few missions are sometimes dragged in as substitutes. Agent May is lucky to have Agent Romanoff to sub her class, even if her students seem to think otherwise.

 

Half of the group was awestruck and Nat plans on giving a few of the more experienced agents who happen to be unable to keep their mouths shut a face full of mat at some point in the near distant future. They wouldn’t focus, and the males? Yeah, they may be leaving with a few more bruises than necessary that day. She really didn’t take kindly to the new recruits trying to catch a feel.

 

She taught the group some basic hits and throws when Coulson enters the training area. She doesn’t acknowledge her silent observer until he calls out for her. “Agent Romanoff, Director Fury would like to speak with you in his office.” The last time Fury had called for her was to give the three of them their new assignment of making up Strike Team Delta. No one goes to Fury’s office.

 

“Class dismiss.” Natasha orders the newbies, already following Phil out of the area. “What happened?” She knows Phil would tell her if something went wrong on Clint’s mission. They know she’s able of putting her emotions on hold when need be. She’s proven it time and time again over the years she’s worked with them.

 

Phil won’t look at her, which just makes her even more concerned. “You’ll see, Agent Romanoff.”

 

Nat pulls her emotions inward, becoming the cold assassin that she was raised to be. They sent Clint on an assignment that would have him play at being a security guard at a Hydra facility. Clint would find a way to mess up a simple information gathering assignment. Besides the fact he stayed two weeks longer than originally planned.

 

Agent Phil Coulson opens the door to Fury’s office and Natasha walks in behind him expecting the worst. What she doesn’t expect is to see her husband perfectly healthy, holding the hands of two children that may be about eight. Or maybe nine. They’re not small children, but they aren’t teenagers.

 

One of them had a hand held up with red light shining from it, as though holding something back. Her gaze moves from Clint and the children to where Fury is being held against the wall by the same red light coming from the girl’s hand.

 

Clint smiles her way. “Hey, Nat.”

 

Fury doesn’t look so much as, well, furious as more like annoyed. “Agent Barton, please tell your ward to put me down.”

 

Nat stares, a bit wide eyed at Clint bending down and whispering in the child’s ear. The girl nodded, and pulled the red mist away. The boy on his other side looked to be furious. They both looked to be about the same age.

 

“Clint, what’s going on?” Her tone was mild, but her emotions are anything but. What in the world did he get into this time?

 

The smile he has covers his entire face, and if she didn’t know any better, she would say he was excited. “I found kids!”

 

Wow. Just wow. Clint should get a reward for being the most obvious agent of that SHIELD has to offer with that comment.

 

 

 

**Clint:**

Originally he had been there to figure out what Hydra was doing at a remote site. When he did find out, he told Phil that it’ll be a bit longer. Clint’s just happy that the relationship he had with his handler was so he didn’t have to explain everything. He was nearly caught just sending the message adding a couple of weeks.

 

He became friendly with the kids, and kept the not so nice guards away from them. The boy was the most grateful, and most suspicious of the two of them. Clint passed messages between the two kids that Hydra scientists were experimenting on, and worked on a plan to get the two of them out.

 

Clint set off an explosion in one part of the building (yay delay fuses!) and took out the guards in front of the cell doors. He stole a set of keys and got the boy out first before going for the girl. His plan dealt with him doing most of the heavy lifting, so he didn’t expect the two kids to actually help.

 

They did, and he was grateful for that. He actually expected to end up with at least a few wounds on this escape route, but he knew that the way he picked was the best bet for all of them to get to the plane he had stored away.

 

He took the two of them and didn’t even have time to buckle them in before taking off with enemy planes on following. He yelled at them to buckle in, not even sure if they would be able to understand him at the way he was yelling.

 

To say Phil and Nick were surprised when he came back with packages? Yeah, definitely an understatement.

 

And now Nat looks just as surprised as they did a few hours ago (Wanda didn’t like Fury referring to them as it). He probably should have called to say that he was coming in with more than just himself. Oops.

 

Director Fury straightens his clothes, and Clint has a feeling that if he didn’t like him so much, he definitely would be shot right now. “Agent Barton, since you have a repertoire with…the children, you get the joy of being in charge of them.”

 

That may not have been part of the plan. “Sir, I know nothing about kids.”

 

Fury’s look was incredulous. “Then you’ll learn. Get out of my OFFICE!”

 

Clint scurried on out, pulling the two kids behind him into the hallway. He turns back to see Phil and Nat standing with him in the hallway. “We have extra beds.” He put on his best puppy face, surely at least one of them would fall for it.

 

“Durak.” Nat’s accent curled the voice on the r and he knew she was annoyed, but on board with the plan. She only called him that when she was about to give into whatever foolish plan he had come up with. Usually his plans end out alright.

 

Phil, if he was anybody else, would be shrugging. “This isn’t the first time Clint’s brought home a stray.” Uh oh, Clint doesn’t want to be Phil when Nat gets her revenge for that comment.

 

 

 

**Snapshots:**

The family took some time for each of them to get used to, but eventually they all did. They became one big and happy family, with some issues thrown in because they are still human.

 

**_Clint and Pietro – Playing Fetch_ **

Clint pulls back the bowstring, lines up the target, and lets the arrow fly. Instead of hitting wooden dummy straight in the target painted on its chest, it was plucked out of the sky by a silver and blue colored blur. “Ha! You’re going to have to try hard than that, old man!”

 

Clint’s smile promised retribution as he fingered the arrows beside him on the bench. In quick succession, he shot all ten arrows at the target in quick succession. Five of them hit the target straight on. The other five? Well, Pietro caught them. “How about that, punk?”

 

Nat walked into the range, and looked at the two males in the family in exasperation. “Clint, what do you think you’re doing?” They had been over this multiple times. Clint wasn’t allowed to shoot at Pietro, even if the kid drove him insane.

 

“Playing fetch.” Clint smirked, one arm going around the boy at his side.

 

At first the smiles were matching, until the boy completely heard what the man had said. “Hey! I’m not dog.”

 

“You were fetching his arrows.” Pietro’s twin and usual partner in crime, piped up from where she followed Nat from the mess hall. Today was supposed to be a simple day of training for the Barton/Romanoff/Maximoff family.

 

Nat should have known Clint would make a game out of it.

 

 

**_Natasha and Wanda – Shopping Trip_ **

The twins given into their care needed clothes that weren’t SHIELD issue and three times too big for them. Originally the plan was that Clint and Nat were going to pick up some clothes for them after guessing their sizes. Instead, Clint had been sent on a mission at last moment and it was left for Natasha to find clothes.

 

So the plan changed to Natasha going and picking up clothes for the two, just to be surprised at Wanda standing awkwardly at her table. Pietro had already been sent to the track for his morning run. The poor kid. If Pietro didn’t get enough energy out of his system early on, he couldn’t focus for the rest of the day. Usually Wanda tagged along when Phil came to pick him up or they dropped him before going to their own training.

 

“Agent Coulson said I should go with you.” Wanda pulled at the too big shirt that covered her frame, and Nat has no idea what could have made Phil think that sending the girl that could move things with her mind, read minds, etc. out with the civilians.

 

Though, she wondered the same thing when they first let her out of the walls after her own training. She had been surprised that Clint had been right about SHIELD then. “Fine.”

 

Nat picked a place where she had went shopping for, Wanda following at her side. The girl kept her head down and tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone. At that age, Natasha may have done the same if she had been saved from the Red Room Black Widow program. Maybe. Possibly. “Try this on.” Natasha held out a simple red dress for the girl, and she watched Wanda’s eyes light up.

 

“I like red.” Wanda fingered the cloth, and Nat added that dress definitely to the pile to take back. SHIELD was supplying this shopping trip, so why not?

 

Nat looked through the outfits and found a red shirt for the girl. “So do I.”

 

 

**_Clint and Natasha – Late Night Talks_ **

The day had been a long one. Natasha was just back from a mission and really just wanted to get some much needed rest. There was only so much adult babysitting one can do for the most annoying man in the universe before joining the side of the many people wanting to kill him. She was tempted to give the other people a hand at killing the annoying scientist.

 

Luckily for her (and the annoying scientist), they were able to get him to the permanent safe house so that he’ll be someone else’s problem. She just wants to get home, take a shower, and sleep for three days. Preferably in that order.

 

It took forever to finish the preliminary reports back at headquarters before Coulson told her to go on home. She knows that after her three days of sleeping, she was going to have even more paperwork to go through. The joy of the bureaucratic system; there was always more paperwork do.

 

She was tired, smelled because the past week had very little access to running water, and couldn’t wait to get home to her family. She sneaks into the house, or at least is near silent as she entered the home in the suburbs. Another place in the suburbs, hopefully they won’t destroy this one like they had the last.

 

A light on the kitchen stays her feet from going to the master bathroom and instead to who could be up at this time of night. The kids’ bed time was hours ago. The only person who should be up would be Clint, but even he was usually asleep by this time.

 

She goes in there to see Clint staring at a beer bottle in front of him, his eyes unfocused like when he was overthinking. She shouldn’t have been able to get as close as she did when he turned with a kitchen blade in hand. The bad part about being a master assassin, or living with one, was the instincts that had been honed over a life time.

 

He places the knife down, a sad smile on his face. “Hey, Nat. Didn’t expect you till tomorrow.” The empty beer bottles in front of him told her that whatever happened to him today was also bad.

 

“Had a break.” She answered, grabbing the bottle from him and setting it to the side. Usually they didn’t talk about the nightmares that had each of them wandering the halls late at night. “How many have you had?”

 

Clint hardly ever drinks. For him to have done so, either the nightmares were worse than normal or something else must have happened. “Four, I think.” He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “How was the mission?”

 

“Dirty. The guy deserved a kick in the pants.” When he didn’t smile at that, she knew that things weren’t going to be so easy to solve. “You?”

 

“I wasn’t sent on a mission, you know that.” His words are a bit slurred. Either from the alcohol or maybe from his lack of hearing aids. She knows his last good set was destroyed with a dip in the water.

 

The durak. “How was your day?” She kept the words soft, and if he was completely there he would have known how annoyed she was getting at his childish behavior.

 

He shrugged, not even bothering to take the alcohol back from her. “Met an old friend today.” Considering their pasts, that could be either a good thing of a bad.

 

Soft footsteps behind her has Natasha turn with a smile for the preteen, even though Wanda doesn’t smile back. “His ex-wife.” Now that would explain his funky mood.

 

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Clint told the girl, his eyes finally focusing with the intelligence that those who knew him laid behind his fun guy exterior.

 

Wanda rolled her eyes, and _pushed_ a memory at Natasha.

 

_Natasha found herself back at SHIELD headquarters, looking at a blonde woman who was yelling something at Clint. She was looking up, and she suddenly figured out she was looking through Wanda’s eyes. Looking back through a memory. She sees that Pietro is with Clint, and relief that isn’t her own goes through her mind._

_“So what happened to leave you on babysitting duty?” The blonde woman asked Clint, and instead of running out like Wanda was prone to do, she held back. Looking at the scene from a distance._

_The kids may be catching different traits from her and Clint. The distance thing was purely Clint._

_Clint’s smile is forced, and his bluster is unusually down as he pulls Pietro closer to him. “Nothing, Bobbi. This is my son, Pietro.”_

_Bobbi laughed at that moment, “What fool made you think that? Come on Clint, you and I both know you aren’t father material.”_

_Wanda chose that moment to come out of the shadows to stand on Clint’s other side. “Dad?” That shocked Natasha, because the kids hardly ever used that term inside of the headquarters. Usually they called them Aunt and Uncle, sometimes switching the other way in the case of Pietro when he’s feeling cheeky._

_Bobbi looked at the three of them, her smile somewhat dimmer than before. “I guess Natalie left you with the kids?”_

_“My wife is busy with work.” Natasha heard the anger in his voice, but Bobbi either didn’t hear or not care. His words, though, reminded her that they never did change the file. Oops._

_“Right.” Bobbi’s tone all but said her opinion to that statement. “Still shooting that bow of yours? I heard they were keeping you close to headquarters, away from the action.”_

_Clint had the two kids close to him, and Natasha can see the lines of stress on his face. “You heard wrong. Nice meeting you again, Bobbi.”_

_“Nobody needs an old man with a bow watching their back.” Natasha swears she hears Bobbi saying that as they walk away from the blonde woman._

_But why would anyone say something that? She’s still in Wanda, and so when Wanda stretched out her mind to read the other woman’s thought, Nat could hear them as well._

_The thoughts are covered in a blue sheen, and jealousy is the emotion that Wanda senses through the connection. Jealousy that didn’t feel genuine._

 

Natasha blinks as their kitchen comes into focus. “I didn’t know you could do that.” She tells the girl, surprised at how much she’s been able to accomplish in just the short time she had been away. They really were growing up to fast.

 

The blue color was something to be concerned about, and so were the emotions being pushed on someone else.

 

But that would be for the morning, tonight is for clearing up Clint. She nods for Wanda to go back to bed. They each knew that sometimes only one of them could deal with the males’ emotional turns. Wanda usually had Pietro, while Natasha had Clint’s to handle.

 

“Clint…take a shower with me.” Natasha jumped to a point that she knew would automatically pull him out of his thoughts. “I need the person I trust my back with to help me wash it.”

 

The humorous light was back in his eyes, and she could tell that this was the distraction he needed for the moment. “Still trust me?” Though that question made her think he wasn’t nearly as over it as she originally thought.

 

“With everything.” And she meant it, with every fiber of her being. She trusted Clint with everything that she was and will be, she only wished that he could see that.

 

“Race you.” His voice was soft so as not to wake up the kids, but he was already taking off to the bathroom.

 

The fool.

 

 

**_Clint and Wanda – Fighting for Love_ **

Wanda crouched inside of the abandon building, trying to figure out what to do to get out of this predicament. She was surrounded on all sides with no way out, and she didn’t want to use her powers. Her powers were to be a last resort option, an option that she wouldn’t go to unless there was no other way. There had to be another way.

 

She nearly shoots Clint as he drops down beside her, the man who has helped raise her for the past eight years, half of her life so far. In ways, he’s more of a child than she’s ever been. In others? He’s never been a child at all. Similar to her and Pietro.

 

He nods her way, not breaking from _Agent Mode_ as Pietro got fond of saying whenever Clint was actually being serious. Natasha has her own mode, but it’s not as abrupt of a change as Clint’s is. Aunt Natasha, mom, Agent Romanoff, Mrs. Barton, in every roll that she plays, she’s very efficient and slightly scary in her efficacy.

 

Clint jokes that she’s a mini Nat at times. Wanda takes it as a compliment. Just as Pietro does whenever they joke he’s a mini Clint. They both look up to the two agents that raised them like that of children looking up to their kids.

 

He’s looking at her to make the decision, because this was the moment that she has been training for. “What’s the plan, Scarlet Witch?” They haven’t even given her and Pietro real code names yet, but Clint already handed them out a few. Wanda like this one.

 

But she doesn’t like being here. She doesn’t like being trapped, and she definitely does not like having the only remaining option being her powers. “We’re low on ammo. Back up is over ten minutes out. This place is a kill box.” At least it’s one unless she uses her abilities.

 

Clint doesn’t even bring up her abilities, he just nods. “Okay. So those are the bad. What good do we have?” He’s the optimist of the four of them, and that’s something that she can admire.

 

Even if it is highly annoying at times. “We die quickly?” The answer seems simple to her, and he breaks out of _Agent Mode_ to smile her way.

 

He doesn’t have time to respond because the enemy has already broken down the doors. She has a moment to act, to be able to save them both.

 

But she doesn’t.

 

The door breaks inward and the goons come filing in, shooting on their way. She closes her eyes to protect them from the bright light as everything explodes.

 

She opens them to clapping, shocked and embarrassed that Uncle Nick was there to see her failure in the simulation. “Good job, you two. Choosing the self-sacrificing act. Next time, find an exit.” His look is stern, and she feels even more like curling in on herself.

 

“Yes, sir.” Clint’s salute is always sloppy, and today is no different. The Director leaves and Clint goes back to the task of cleaning up after their training session. He always keeps up with his arrows, even if they are just the ones designed for playing. “You okay, Wanda?”

 

She’s not okay. “Sorry.” If it had been real? There wouldn’t be a next time for the both of them. They both would be dead because of her hesitation.

 

He pauses in his movements, and goes to her with a hug. In his arms, he holds the girl close. “Nothing to be sorry for.” To him, all that mattered was that she did her best.

 

But she didn’t, and Clint needed to know. He needed to know why he ‘died’ in the simulation when it had been her job to guard his back. “I hesitated. I couldn’t…how can you so easily kill people?”

 

The wording was wrong as soon as it left her mouth, and Wanda knew it. She knew it in the way he tensed up and was pulling out of their hug. “I don’t.” Of the four, Pietro and Clint were the most prone to being emotional. Her and Nat like to joke about how stereotypes have never met them.

 

“That’s not what I meant.” Wanda explains, grabbing his hand and keeping him from running off. Last time had been when Pietro had thrown a fit about them not being their parents. Natasha had stayed behind, but Clint had held up a hand before disappearing for a couple of days. “I mean…why don’t you hesitate?”

 

Clint was like the mom in their group, even if sometimes he took the more dad role. “Because I was protecting you.”

 

Wanda joins him in picked up after themselves. A few of the dummies had also been made out of wood or straw instead of just holographic. “How about in the field?” She knew that sometimes they were sent in to kill people that weren’t actively trying to shoot them.

 

“Because the dog protects the mouse from the cat.” He sounds as if he’s quoting someone, and he probably is. He has been around. “There are people out there, people that get up in the morning and go to work, who love and care about each other. There are good people out there that have no idea of what the shadows hold.” The arrows with broken shafts are put in a pile for him to go through later. “I want to say my reason is that selfless, but it’s not.” He looks down at her, still taller even after her last growth spurt. “I don’t hesitate out there because my team is counting on me to have their backs. They need to get home. Yeah, the other side has their own homes, but they are trying their best to keep me and mine from returning home. On clean up assignments, sometimes we are striking before they have that chance. Before they can stop someone from coming back to their loved ones. I don’t hesitate, because everyone that I take out is one less that my partner will have to face.”

 

Wanda can read between the lines, and she can feel that there was a story beneath his words. A story that he probably hasn’t shared with anyone. It took a joke to for them to figure out he was raised in a circus.

 

“We fight to protect those we love.” Wanda’s voice fully accented at that point, her emotions at play. He nods, and together they finish cleaning up.

 

 

**_Natasha and Pietro – Surprise Shoes_ **

Pietro has a slight problem with shoes. They wear out way too easily. One time he got a pair and used them up before he finished his morning run. By the way, running on hot black top barefoot hurts, no matter how fast you are going.

 

It took a while for Natasha to notice the boy’s problem, but after noticing a problem she knew it had to be fixed. Or at least to come up with a better solution than him wearing out four to five pairs a day.

 

Which led her down to SHIELD labs, or R&D department, while Clint entertained the kids with ice cream and frozen yogurt. She knows that asking him not to hype themselves up with caffeine and sugar wasn’t going to end well. (Yes, she includes Clint with the twins on that.) He just laughed and mentioned the ice cream shop. She couldn’t say no to their three faces.

 

But she can get revenge on them later.

 

So she asks the department to find something for the boy she has taken under her wing, and been watching out for during these past few months. She may not be able to say the words, but her actions showed love. She didn’t shoot them when they broke her favorite lamp.

 

The tech is more nervous of her than paying attention, but hopefully the nervous newbie will be able to find something for Pietro. They also needed to find him clothes that wouldn’t burn off when he went to his fast speeds. Or fall off in that one case.

 

Two weeks later they have something for her, and she’s glad they at least have something. At that rate, she was starting to think her request had gotten lost somewhere. Sometimes the department moved quickly, but at other times? Not so much.

 

She grabs the shoes and takes them back home. After dinner, when Clint is insisting they watch some kind of classic movie she’s never heard of, she drops the shoes in Pietro’s lap without fanfare. She knows that the three of them are staring at her, but she’s already picked the movie for them. Something involving fast cars.

 

During it, Pietro brags that he can run faster than that. A new trip for the family, it seems, to determine if he really is as fast as a race car.

 

The shoes last for two months, even with him impersonating a race car during that time. The lab may actually be handy for something.

 

The next pair she gets is blue. He seems partial to the color.

 

 

**_Phil, Wanda, and Pietro – Babysitting_ **

Just because Agent Phil Coulson is their handler, it doesn’t mean he goes on every mission each of them goes on. Certain missions have no need for two agents to be at the same locale, especially when the missions are supposed to be routine with his agents only being sent in as back up.

 

The problem happens when Phil also doubles as the handler for their two children, and yes, Pietro and Wanda are their children in every way but blood. Though, Phil is going to hit Clint for suggesting to them to call him Papaw Phil. He’s not that old, thank you very much.

 

But Natasha was sent out a week ago to help with some security protocols at a satellite site (No, Clint, satellite site does not mean that it is an actual satellite.). They had been having issues with potential breaches and so they sent one of the best spies to look over what the honest folks could be forgetting. With his luck, it was probably something incredibly simple that will, in some impossible fashion, end in the entire place being a Hydra nest.

 

The last place she had been sent to had been.

 

So, Natasha is still in **classified** at the same time Clint was being sent to go train a few of the new recruits in long range weaponry. Specifically, the ones the no one seemed able to teach. Clint has a knack for finding the correct weapon for each individual while others would despair. It may have something to do with him being a child.

 

Which all boils down to that Phil, as ‘Papaw Phil’, has the joy of watching his younger charges. Wanda is a dream to take care of. Pietro? Not so much.

 

Though dealing with Clint has really given him some practice.

 

So far the young man has decided to tie together the shoes of every person that comes into his office that day. At least his nearly certain it is Pietro, the boy claims it was Wanda. Wanda? Well, she just rolls her eyes and gets back to reading the manual she took from his desk a few hours ago.

 

It could very well be Wanda, but Phil is going to stay on the path of blaming Pietro at the moment, because he did see him tie at least one pair. The others? It was a bit blurry for him to completely make out.

 

Eventually, though, he comes up with the idea of having them go to the training room. Phil has Wanda throw things using just her abilities and charges Pietro in catching them before the hit the floor. He’s certain they are cheating, but it is entertaining them.

 

Clint is the one to make it back first, and Phil shouldn’t have been surprised when he joined in with a modified version of paint ball. Pietro was nearly impossible to hit, but not completely. Phil even found himself in the middle of the war with his own paint gun when Natasha walked in with an overelaborated eye roll.

 

She pulled out a weapon of her own and shot him point blank. Her own yellow color making a splat on his used to be clean suit.

 

Now, war has been declared.

 

 

**_Clint, Natasha, Wanda, and Pietro – We All Have Monsters_ **

The scream woke Natasha in a start and had her reaching for the gun she always keeps close at hand. She makes out another whimper and is shaking Clint awake. He came awake with a knife in hand and eyes chasing the shadows. With a look, they were already on the same note. Clint’s job would be to get the kids out, while Natasha took out whatever threat was there.

 

They crept along the hallway, Natasha leading the way and Clint guarding her back the entire time. They make it to Wanda’s room first, because she was the closest one to them. They entered, Nat’s gun drawn and ready to take out any threat that happened to be there. No threat, except maybe to Wanda’s psyche at seeing her parents coming into her room with weapons drawn.

 

Wanda was sitting straight up on her bed, staring wide eyed at the weapon in Natasha’s hand. Silently, Nat motioned for Wanda get up and behind her with Clint. Wanda was perched between the two of them, protected from the front and the back. It was such a difference from how Hydra had viewed her, and even some of the SHIELD agents, as that of a weapon.

 

They keep on their journey like that further down the hall. This was the first night that the twins had gone to separate rooms instead of bunking in one. A first for them, but it was something that they were trying to do. Codependency may look adorable on television, but it doesn’t do so well in real life. Natasha and Clint had seen too many people go through that to ever think it was a great idea.

 

They entered Pietro’s room, all of them ready to fight for the boy they each cared for so much.

 

Just to have Natasha drop her stance, Clint to draw inward, and Wanda to run to hold her brother. After a few moments, Clint and Natasha joined them. Four people on a bed that really was built only for one.

 

“Pietro, wake up. It’s just a bad dream.” Wanda whispered to him, gently rubbing the hair out from his eyes.

 

He jerked awake, and the only way to describe his expression would be sheepish. “Sorry. I didna mean to wake everyone.”

 

Clint just smiled at the boy. “It’s okay. I’ve woken Nat plenty of times.”

 

Natasha seemed to break slightly at that. “I pulled the gun on Clint before.” She was usually able to keep her nightmares silent, but her reactions at being woken up leaned towards the deadly side.

 

“Good thing I’m flexible.” Clint made it as a joke, and he really thought of it in that way. She hadn’t meant to attack him, and she didn’t pull the trigger. To him everything was okay.

 

She still dreamed that he hadn’t been so nimble, or her response time had been quicker.

 

Natasha found herself being pulled into a hug, and Clint gave voice to what all of them were thinking. “We all have monsters that haunt our rest. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

 

**_Wanda, Pietro, Kate, and Lucky – Clint’s Apartment Building_ **

Kate swears that Clint just loves to torment her. He really does.

 

The two teenagers that were dropped off on her looked just as annoyed at Clint telling them to have fun while him and Natasha ran to go kill some robot things.

 

Both Natasha and Clint had been taking jobs at the same age as Wanda and Pietro were. Heck, she was saved by Clint from some tracksuit dudes around that age AND she was pulling his butt out of dumpsters because he hadn’t figured out that he can’t fly.

 

The idiot still hasn’t figured it out, but at least now he has some people to catch him.

 

So now she has two teenagers, and a building to protect at the same time the Russian Mob has decided to renew their attacks on the old building. If Clint found out…Scratch that, if NATASHA found out she was going to have the two teenagers to help her, she would have her head.

 

But what use is having two enhanced teenagers with spy training in the case of dealing with a bunch of bullies?

 

Kate grabs her own bow and heads to the roof top, really wanting to use the prototypes that Clint dropped off for her. She made her own, but sometimes it was interesting to see the kind of things he would come up with. Though the boomerang arrows are still the best.

 

Pietro easily rounds up the tracksuit people that she assigned them, and it takes no time for Wanda to have them falling down with a few moves of her hand. This may be the fastest take down that Kate has ever been a part of. Maybe.

 

When Clint and Natasha come back, a bit beat up with Clint having the worst in the shape of a giant goose egg on his head, they all smiled and said they had a great time. Natasha looking knowingly at Kate’s bow, but Kate wasn’t about to say anything.

 

Wanda and Pietro’s matching grins though when they said they couldn’t wait to come back? Yeah…they may be taking after Clint in the undercover department.

 

Good thing for them, and her, Clint can be oblivious to things right under his nose.

 

 

**_Barton/Romanoff/Maximoff/etc. – Family Photo Shoot_ **

After rearranging their busy schedules, and placating a bunch of paranoia, they finally had a date, time, and place set for their big family photo.

 

It doesn’t go well.

 

To start off with, Pietro cannot sit still for very long. Seriously, the kid is almost always bounding about even when he’s trying to hold back his speed. Blurry pictures? Yeah, not what Clint was looking for.

 

Yes, this idea of getting the entire family together falls completely on Clint’s shoulders.

 

He was feeling emotional, and decided that it would be a good idea to get a picture taken of everyone. And when he means everyone, he really means everyone.

 

Even Natasha didn’t know everyone that he dragged out of the woodwork, though she could see that they each had their own skillsets and masters in their field.

 

The first photo had everyone in it. Everyone being people ranging from Director Fury all the way to someone from Clint’s days in the circus.

 

Each successful photo was followed by one that had even smaller groups together, until finally it was just Nat, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro.

 

They were pressed together, with Clint and Pietro tickling the girls just as the flash went off for the camera.

 

It was a photo of a laughing family. The twins were next, with Pietro putting bunny ears on his sister, and Wanda lifting Pietro with her mind when she found out what he did.

 

The next to last photo was of Clint and Natasha. The twins pushed their parents together, and pleaded with the master assassins to pose together for a picture.

 

Clint, because he never can do things partway, pulled Nat and the twins back in. For once, Pietro was sitting still and Clint refrained from his antics.

 

It was a nice photo, and the one Nat gave a copy to Phil.

 

 

**_Wanda and Pietro – We Are Loved_ **

Both of them woke up at the same time in the middle of the night. Pietro could have ran for a snack, and Wanda could have gotten a head start on studying, but they didn’t do either of those things. Instead, each of them snuck out of their windows and onto the roof. Together, they looked up at the stars, each of them lost in thoughts and memories.

 

“I think mom would have liked Natasha.” Pietro randomly spoke out, telling his sister the idea that came to him from the stars.

 

Wanda’s smile is small, but genuine. “Yeah. Mom definitely would have.” Their parents had died in an attack years ago, which had left the two of them vulnerable to Hydra’s call.

 

Pietro reached out a hand for Wanda to grab hold of. “I know Dad would have loved Phil.” Their father was a bit like him, a suit to cover the playful character underneath.

 

Wanda grabbed it. “I think Mom would have loved Clint. At least feeding him.” They each chuckled at that. The archer was prone to stealing food whenever someone else was cooking. If every meal was up to him, it would probably be some type of pizza.

 

They each keep staring up at the sky, counting the stars and thinking about how far each of them have come. They went from being a family of four, to being orphans, subjects, weapons, and now a part of yet another family.

 

“I miss them.” Pietro broke the silence, the energy already pushing at him to start moving. Being a subject for Hydra had its down side and plus. On one hand, he could run faster than anyone he ever met. On the other? He had to fight to stay still.

 

Wanda didn’t dignify that with a response, because she felt the same. She missed her parents, but she also loves where they have come. “I think they are proud of us, wherever they are.”

 

Pietro turns, a face full of mischief. “Are you proud of us?” He called out to the two assassin/super spies that were listening from his room.

 

Clint’s laugh could be heard, along with Nat’s reprimand for him shut it. “We are!” Clint didn’t even bother being quiet, and Nat’s softer laughter (and less heard of the four) joins his guffaws.

 

Wanda nods to her brother and the both of them crawl back through their windows. At the end of the day, there were all loved, no matter what label the chose to use.

 

Brother. Sister. Wife. Husband. Assassin. Weapon. Experiment. Carnie. Operative. Agent. Avenger. Twin.

 

They were a family by choice.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you watch a movie and all you can think is...  
> I can see Clint doing that!  
> or...  
> Yep, definitely a Black Widow kind of thing.
> 
>  
> 
> This is the result.


End file.
